True or False
by the.eye.does.not.SEE
Summary: It began as an interrogation, but at some point, it morphed into a game. Jane/Oscar fluff.
1. True or False

**A/N** : Alert: there is actual fluff below. I mean it this time. _Fluff._ So, please read and enjoy and let me know what you think! :)

x x x

True or false. It began as an interrogation, initially. She wanted her answers, and she refused to take part in any of his missions or tests until he told her what she wanted to know. He, as expected, was not open to the idea. He made the same threats as before— _they'll kill Weller,_ he said, _and the rest of your team_ —but there was something tired in his voice that told her the words he spoke were not his own. Something dull that told her that those threats had been put there for him, written in the script for him, and that they were nothing more than lines to him. They gave her pause, of course. She didn't want to lose Kurt—or anyone. But she needed her answers.

She landed on "true or false" because it was the only strategy available to her. He was not much of a talker, and she knew if she asked him straight questions, ones that deserved long answers, he would clam up. He would disappear into the night, as he had so many times before, and she would be left alone with only questions. She hoped offering him the simple task of assigning a one-word answers to her statements would not only expedite the process, but elongate it. She wanted to get through as much information as she could, as fast as she could.

She started with simple things, things she was already aware were true.

 _We used to be engaged,_ she said.

 _True,_ he said.

 _I used to be in the Army,_ she said.

 _True,_ he said.

 _I did all this to myself,_ she said.

He hesitated then. His teeth scraped over his lower lip, as if the answer were there for the taking. _True,_ he said finally, but he drew out the word in a slow way that told her, _Not really._

She didn't press him. That was fine. Even his hesitation spoke volumes. And she would find a way to get the details later.

She moved onto other things quickly. She made statements about the cases, about her tattoos, about his tattoo. She talked about the bearded man who had been killed in her apartment, and any other face she recognized from her memory. He said _True_ and he said _False._ He hesitated every once in a while, but she trained herself not to ask follow-ups. If she made him pause, he might realize the error of his ways and call it all off. He could. Because she knew, no matter if she was the one interrogating him, that he was still the one with all the cards. He was still the one in charge.

But there was one question that he did hesitate at, one that she did follow up on, and even now, she couldn't be sure why. There had been something in his face, she would think later. Or perhaps she had just been overly curious to know.

 _We were friends,_ she said, _the man with the beard and me_.

He lifted a hand to his face, dragging it over his sparse stubble. She watched his eyes, even as they turned down and away from hers. She repeated her words, firmer this time.

 _False,_ he said finally, looking back up.

She blinked, not sure at first what to say.

 _We weren't friends?_ she pressed, not thinking before opening her mouth. _But I remember us training together, I remember us…_ She didn't know the word for it. _We felt close,_ she finally said.

He nodded at that. And then for some reason he spoke again too:

 _You were close. But you weren't friends—or at least, not just friends._ At the blank look on her face, he added, smiling slightly, _You guys were more like siblings. I actually thought you were, when you first introduced us. It was weeks before I realized._

He could've left it there. They could've moved onto the next true-or-false question, or he couldn't taken his silent leave, as usual, when she got to be too much. But he kept speaking.

 _That's one thing I'm grateful for,_ he whispered. _The fact that you weren't fully cognizant of who he was when you watched him die._ He shook his head. His eyes were too big, too hurt, when they met hers. She knew she should feel sorrow, but still—nothing. She felt only that he was in pain, but nothing from herself. _The old you would disagree, but I'm happy he died when you still didn't know who he was to you. If you'd known…_ He shook his head, half turning away, as he trailed off into silence.

She tossed him a few more statements, meaningless in the grand scheme of things, to take his mind off of the lost possibilities. He gave his _True_ s and his _False_ s, and then they let things fall apart again. She left first, heading back to her safe house. When she looked back at the door, he was still standing there in the middle of the musty basement, staring at the floor. She felt an odd urge to comfort him—he looked so alone in that huge, half-lit decrepit room—but she stepped out into the night instead. It was cold out, and in the chill, she found a rationale for the shiver crawling up her back.

x x x

The next time they met, after they'd finished their real business, he allowed the interrogation to continue. Neither Kurt nor Reade or Tasha nor anyone else at the FBI had been killed since their last meeting, and so she supposed either the threats he'd served her were empty, or he wasn't passing along all the information he should be to his superiors. She wouldn't be surprised if either—or both—explanations were true. That thought gave her some fodder for round two.

 _You're not in charge,_ she said, once they'd finished their talks about the mission.

He smiled a little, like maybe he knew how good it felt for her to say those words to him. _True,_ he said. His voice was quieter than she expected.

 _There are a lot of people involved behind the scenes that I don't know about,_ she said.

 _True,_ he answered, with an upward flick of his eyes that said, _Well, obviously_.

It hardened her some. She did not like his taunting. _You want the old me back,_ she said flatly.

She had meant to sting him. She had wanted, selfishly, to see a flash of hurt in his eyes. She wanted him to suffer just a small amount of what she had suffered. But he was calm when he looked at her.

 _True,_ he said simply.

Her next words came out a little shaky.

 _You don't like the new me,_ she said. She already knew the answer.

But blinked at her as if he did not, and took a half-step forward, tilting his head to the side as if in confusion.

 _That's… not true,_ he said after a moment.

She swallowed, and resisted the urge to step back. _The word is "false,"_ she reminded him. And then, before she forgot the real answer herself: _You mean "true," though. It's true that you don't like me; that you'd rather her._

 _It's not that I don't like you._ He shook his head. _That's not what it's about,_ he said. He stared at her a moment longer—she had no choice except to stare back—and then he walked away. She stood and stared at the placed he'd been, listening to his footsteps echo across the concrete. She heard them pause at the door. She wondered if he was looking back at her, as she'd looked back at him the other week. She wondered if she looked as lonely and downtrodden now as he had then.

She waited for him to return, to come back, to explain. But he opened the door and left.

x x x

There was food waiting for her, the next time she arrived. She could smell it when she opened the door, could smell the spices and sense the heat. It made her mouth water, even though she'd eaten a few hours ago. There was something about the scents, something familiar but also foreign, that drew her in. An old memory was guiding her, she guessed. She let it.

He had found a three-legged table amidst the rubble in the abandoned basement, and managed to set it upright with the help of a broken bookcase in lieu of a fourth leg. Because they didn't have chairs, they stood and ate, but it was oddly nice anyway. He had gotten her some sort of meat dish, tossed in a thick orange sauce with what looked to be potatoes. She couldn't tell what the meat was, but she stabbed a hunk of it anyway with her plastic fork and tasted it—and nearly lit her mouth on fire in the process. She almost spat the food right back out into the take-out container it'd come from, but then there was his hand in front of her face, holding out an open water bottle, and it seemed like the better option.

She snatched the water at once, downing a third of it greedily before managing to swallow her food, and come up for air. She was about to ask if he was trying to burn her mouth off when spoke.

 _Despite never having been able to handle your spices well, you still love Indian food._

He said this calmly, while picking through his own take-out box, and then lifted his head to look at her. His look turned into a stare, and she became uncomfortable under his close gaze until she realized she was supposed to answer. She swallowed, still able to taste a little of the spicy sauce in her mouth. It tasted good, she realized—in small doses, at least.

 _True,_ she said, drawing out the vowels long and slow, like a question.

He nodded, and smiled briefly, before turning back to his food.

She sat and stared, feeling her own box hot between her hands, her own stomach craving more, but above that, there was a fiercer need for the knowledge he offered.

As if reading her mind, he took another swallow of his food, a sip of water, and then he said, _I've known you all my life._

She blinked, caught off-guard by the change in the line of questioning. He glanced up at her briefly, eyebrows raised as if to say _Are you going to answer or what?_ , before he turned back to his food. She watched him, unsure. He had said the words as calmly as he had said anything else. But she had no idea…

 _True?_ she guessed, sounding much more hopeful than certain.

He shook his head. _False,_ he said, taking a draw from his own water bottle. He glanced at her sidelong. _Six years,_ he corrected. _Seven in May._

 _Seven,_ she repeated, thinking on that. She took another bite of her food, a smaller one, and it went down easier this time. She could actually taste the flavor beneath the heat in her mouth. She tried to imagine knowing someone for seven years—or even for _a_ year—and she almost couldn't do it.

But then she glanced at him, sitting at her side, sharing a meal, and she thought maybe this is what it was like, to know someone so long: the ability to find quiet companionship in another person. Learning about them and their life.

 _How'd we meet?_ she asked suddenly, looking up just in time to see a grin stretch across his face as he poked at his food. _What?_ she pressed, feeling herself smile, too. It was not often she saw him happy.

He shook his head. _Another time,_ he said. When his eyes met hers, the brown in them was kind, not dismissive. _When we know each other a little better,_ he added.

She nodded, appreciating the explanation, and turned back to her food. She finished it all, and when she was done, she let the heat of the spices vibrate inside her mouth afterwards, waiting for him to finish too, and wondering what other secrets he kept from her, and what others she might uncover.

x x x

 _You're allergic to dogs,_ he said.

 _False,_ she shot back, defiant—she knew this one.

He grinned, bouncing the worn basketball in his hands, letting the slap of its surface against the concrete basement echo harshly in their ears. They were playing a rapid-fire version of their game, trading off statements and shots.

He pivoted towards the netless hoop, released the ball—

It bounced off the metal circle with a dull _thwang_ , and she crowed, running for it as he groaned, knowing it was her turn now. So long as she held the ball, and kept making her shots, she got to make the statements, and he had to answer.

 _We met in the States,_ she said, dribbling the ball around the edge of their makeshift court.

 _True,_ he answered, following a few paces behind her, keeping himself between her and the hoop in order to try to block and shot she might take.

He had five points to her (miraculous) four, and she could sense he was getting nervous. When they'd started playing, he'd said something about some record he held, some amount of points over hers. She had never played basketball before—at least not in this life—but she was determined to beat him, simply because he didn't want her to.

Just as she was determined to weasel the story of the start of their relationship out of him. In the few meetings they'd had since he'd brought her Indian food (which she now ordered in at home for herself, every Friday), he'd been mum on the subject. _When we know each other better,_ he always repeated, when she tried pestering him into an answer. Tonight, she'd decided for the roundabout route. Any detail helped, even if she couldn't get the full story.

 _You're older than me,_ she said, centering herself before the hoop, watching him slowly walk up between her and it, keeping his defensive position.

 _False,_ he answered.

She had been leaning back, positioning herself perfectly to take the shot, but his answer made her freeze, made her hands, and the ball held between them, fall. _No,_ she said, frowning. She still held the ball tight. _You're older_.

He grinned, that quick, sly grin of his, the one that had only begun appearing recently, during their less serious meetings. _Whatever you have to tell yourself to ease your cradle-robbing conscience,_ he replied. Then he gestured up at the hoop. _Take your shot. Stop stalling._

She didn't raise the ball. She was only just realizing that she didn't have any more of an idea of his age than she did her own. _How old am I?_ she asked, curious.

He shook his head impatiently, reaching forward to snatch the ball out of her suddenly numb hands. He pivoted towards the net, adjusted himself a few degrees, let it fly—it went in perfectly, and he clapped in victory. _That's not a statement,_ he reminded her, catching her eye before jogging after the bouncing ball.

She rolled her eyes, the momentary fear gone, the curiosity back. _Fine._ She tossed around for an age. She thought of how old Kurt was, and how old she was supposed to be in comparison, if she were really Taylor Shaw. _I'm thirty,_ she called out to him.

 _False!_ came his shout from the far side of the warehouse—the ball had rolled away, and she could hear him shoving debris aside in order to get at it.

 _Twenty-eight,_ she guessed.

A laugh burst out from the back of the warehouse. _Don't flatter yourself,_ he shouted back, and she suddenly wished she had the ball in her hands so she could pitch it at his head.

 _Thirty-two,_ she offered next, just as he came back into view with the basketball tucked under his arm.

 _True,_ he said. He was smiling. _Good thing you were guessing in twos, else this would've taken all night._

 _And are you—_ She started to ask, before she remembered, and transformed her would-be question into a statement. _You're…_ She caught the ball he tossed towards her, remembering what he'd just said about twos. _You're thirty,_ she said with confidence.

He dipped his head in acknowledgment. _True._

She took her shot, watched it sail through the air.

 _Damn,_ he muttered when it went in. She was only one point behind again.

 _Two-year difference,_ she frowned, catching the ball and tossing it a little harder than necessary at his chest. _I'd hardly call that cradle-robbing, would you?_

He grinned, bouncing it once, twice, before taking his stance. _Sometimes it isn't about age._ The ball went in, dropped to the ground. He caught her eye with a teasing look in his. _You know, I was as innocent as could be when you stormed into my life._

She rolled her eyes.

 _False,_ they said together, their voices ringing throughout the empty space.

x x x

 _You're nervous,_ he said, huddling close to her under the umbrella, while they waited for the restaurant's most recent patrons to leave, and tried to keep out of the pouring rain.

She shook her head, shivering with the cold in her threadbare jeans and too-thin hoodie. _False,_ she whispered, but he could hear the lie.

 _Don't worry,_ he said. With his free hand, he squeezed her upper arm quickly, and then let go.

Once the restaurant's patrons had left the stoop and hopped into their cab, he and she made their way to the door, shaking off the rainwater in the tiny two-by-two space that acted as a foyer. He propped the umbrella in the basket with the others, and handed their wet coats to the waiting hostess. She rubbed some warmth into her hands and peered around the restaurant. It was tiny. _Tiny._ The living room in her one-bedroom apartment was bigger than this restaurant. And it was nearly full; there was only one open table left, that luckily was theirs.

 _Couldn't you have found something a little more spacious?_ she asked, as the hostess gestured that they could take their seats.

He smiled, sitting down across from her in the cramped space. _I like this place,_ he said.

She sighed, settling in. Their table was squeezed into a far side of the restaurant, cluttered on three sides by other diners and on one side by a wall, but in truth, she didn't mind so much. She was small; she could fit. He, on the other hand… _Your funeral, I guess,_ she muttered, feeling the table shake when his knees bumped against it.

She caught a quick snippet of his chuckle at her comment, and was immediately reminded of the conversation they'd had before coming here. She'd met him in the basement storeroom, like usual, ready to hash out whatever details of the mission he had for her, ready to go through another round of true or false, when she'd pulled up short.

He had been standing there, waiting for her as usual… But he was in a suit. His hair was combed.

He took in her usual ripped jeans and tank top, covered by a damp hoodie, wet from the rain, and frowned.

 _I thought I told you to dress up?_ he wondered aloud.

 _I…_ She stared helplessly, floundering for words like a fish on a dry deck does for water. _I—I thought you were kidding!_ Then her eyes went wide. _We're not—You're not seriously taking me out to dinner. You're not serious. That—That was a joke!_

 _No…_ He drew out the word, crossing his arms as he came to stand in front of her. _It was serious. I believe I even said the words "I'm serious" after I asked. Just—you know—so you got the point._

 _Okay, first of all, you didn't_ ask _, you suggested, and—_

 _And you said yes!_ he cut in.

 _Because I thought you were kidding!_ she shouted back, her voice rising with guilt and desperation. _I said yes in a "Oh, ha-ha, if only" sort of way! Not in a "Yes, I will go out to dinner with you" way. It—_

She broke off when she saw him sigh, and close his eyed. She bit her lip, feeling guilt flood her along with the rainwater. She had honestly thought he wasn't serious. Because how could he be serious? The two of them, meeting in public? Having a _meal_ in public? Was he _begging_ someone to put all of the pieces together?

 _I'm sorry,_ she whispered when he didn't say anything. _I—Honestly, I didn't know. I never thought—_

She swallowed hard, and licked her lips. He still wasn't looking at her. And she still didn't know what to say to make it better. She knew it was hard enough for him, under usual circumstances, to be around her. They'd gotten friendly these past few weeks, friendlier than she had ever been with Kurt or Tasha or Patterson, and it had felt good. For her, and, she thought, for him. There was hardly a night she saw him that he didn't smile these days, and even with the pressure of their various and sometimes conflicting responsibilities, there was an ease to the time they spent together, the playing of their true or false game, and the learning of more about each other.

Obviously he'd wanted something different than friendship, though, and it was painfully obvious now. She couldn't stop staring at how nicely he'd combed his hair. It made her want to go jump in a river, and not come back out. Why had she thought he had been kidding? Of course he would be serious about something like this. Of course he would want to look his best for her.

 _I… I am hungry, though,_ she tried weakly, inching towards his turned back, hoping for a compromise. _Maybe we could get take-out or something? Talk, if you want?_

He shook his head, and she felt her throat seize, waiting for him to turn around and storm out. He'd be well within his rights. But when he finally turned around, it wasn't to push past her. He met her eye, looked her up and down, and then finally shrugged. _It doesn't matter,_ he said, laughing quietly. _You can go like that. There's no dress code, and even if there were—I don't really care. I just want to have dinner with you._

And now here they were, stuffed into a tiny table in a restaurant that was far too small for the number of people it served, pretending like this dinner and their wildly disparate outfits were all part of the plan. The waitress came by to distribute menus, and fill their water glasses, and list off the specials. When she asked if they wanted any wine or drinks for the table, he glanced over at her.

 _You like white wines,_ he said, and passed the list to her. _You pick._

Her eyes narrowed as she took it, suspicious of him now. He smiled benignly across from her, waiting for choice. She had only had wine once since the start of her new life, preferring beer or harder alcohols, and though it had been a red wine and she hadn't like it, there was something about him tonight that made her think he was trying to trip her up.

 _False,_ she said, and gave the list back to him. _Find a nice red, would you? You like those._

He tried to hide it, burying his nose in the list and conferring with the waitress, but she caught a flash of his smile, and she smiled herself, settling back in her seat. The only thing that was better than catching him out on one of his purposeful lies was the way he looked at her when she did it: proud. Like he always expected her to come out on top, always expected her to be smarter than the rest, even him.

 _So,_ she said, after the wine had been poured (a rather good one, in her limited opinion) and they had placed their orders. _Why'd you bring me here?_

He shrugged, reaching for his glass, and taking a small sip. _You wanted to know how we met._

She blinked, and immediately bent forward, disrupting some of her silverware in her eagerness to understand, to be closer to the truth.

He held out a hand, calming her. _Don't get excited, it wasn't here._

She frowned, and wilted a little. She glanced around the tiny, boisterous restaurant. It was actually lucky their table was so cramped—they could hear one another easily in such a tight space, and with so much noise around them from the other diners, she figured their conversation was mostly covered up. _Where, then?_ she asked. _Where did we meet?_

He shrugged. _I don't know. You tell me._

She sighed heavily, flopping back into her booth seat with an audible slump. Despite the information it had brought her, despite the friendship it had given her, she was beginning to regret having ever started that true or false game with him.

 _Can't you just tell me? Just like once? Like a normal person?_

He laughed. _Like a normal person? Since when are either of us normal people?_

She couldn't exactly argue with that. She took a piece of bread from the basket between then and worried over it, ripping it into smaller and smaller pieces to eat. She didn't know where to start. She had been so focused on learning about her past that she'd hardly asked him anything about his—at least not anything that did not primarily have to do with her.

She ran through the information at hand, trying to think of something relevant. She was about to give up, and threaten him with whatever she could to get the truth, when one detail made her stop and think.

 _We met in the Army,_ she said, abandoning her last bit of bread to hold onto the table so she wouldn't jump out of her seat in excitement. Finally, she was unraveling things.

But he didn't answer _True_ or _False_ right away. He shifted his chin from side to side, messing with his jaw. He did that sometimes, when he was puzzling over what to say.

 _You have to answer,_ she reminded him sternly when he still didn't say anything after a few seconds.

 _I know,_ he replied. He reached out a finger to touch the spoon set on his right. He rubbed the silver there for a moment. _But it might help your cause if you were a little more specific._

 _I can't_ be _specific,_ she reminded him through gritted teeth, but he waved her away with an encouraging, _Come on. Try._

She drew in a breath. _Fine,_ she muttered, marshaling her thoughts. She thought again of the things she explicitly knew about herself—and the things she explicitly knew about him. One list was rather long, the other rather short. She knew she had been in the Army, but him…

 _Okay,_ she said, looking up. _We met while_ I _was in the Army._

He nodded. _True._ He looked clearly pleased with her progress, but she was not. They had been here at least ten minutes and this was all she'd gotten so far? She frowned. It wasn't worth it.

 _Can I propose something?_ she asked.

A few weeks ago, the look he gave her would have been wary. But tonight, he only seemed intrigued. _Sure. What do you propose?_

 _For every true-or-false I get right, I get to ask you a real question, and you have to answer._

He tilted his head to the side, considering this. _And? What's in it for me?_

She bit on the inside of her lower lip. It was true, there wasn't anything in it for him, nothing except rehashing the past. Which, at times, cheered him, she knew. But it also hurt him. She had to think of something that would make this worthwhile for him, something that would be as important to him as her answers were important to her.

 _How about… For every five questions you answer, I'll go out on another dinner with you?_

His bright eyes immediately betrayed his eagerness to accept her suggestion, but his words, as usual, were far more pragmatic.

 _And how do I know that's what you actually want? There's no point in taking you out to dinner if you don't want to go with me._

 _When did I say I didn't want to go with you?_

He frowned, and pointed at her outfit. _Do I have to remind you about how we ended up here in this state?_

She waved a hand. _Miscommunication. I told you I wanted to come. And_ … She glanced around the room, glanced at him, looked down at herself. Even despite her ridiculously informal outfit, she felt good here, with him. Nowhere near as nervous as she'd felt outside. _I like this dinner so far,_ she told him honestly.

He sighed, and adjusted himself in his chair. _Let's hope you'll still like it by the end,_ he muttered quietly. And then, a little louder, _Okay. Start your interrogation, if you must._

She didn't waste any time.

 _When we met, I was in the Army, but what were you doing? How did we meet?_

He stared at her for a moment, and she watched as he put the story together in his head, picking the right words to say, and the right way to say it. He drank some water, and then set the glass aside. She gave him time, knowing these weren't the easiest memories to wade through.

Finally, he said, _I was in the Marines when I met you. Stationed in Virginia._

She blinked, not having expected that at all. _Marines?_ she repeated.

He smiled a little at her reaction. _Does that surprise you?_

 _It… Yes,_ she answered honestly, and then she laughed a little. _It makes sense, I guess, with what I've seen you do, though. But I never really thought about it. I just kind of assumed you were Army, like me. I thought that's why we knew each other._ She thought for a moment. _Where in Virginia?_ she asked, curious. She'd never been there—at least, not that she could remember.

 _At the base in Quantico_ , he answered.

 _Quantico_ … She knew that name. She thought on it—and then she remembered, just as their food arrived, and it took all her willpower to smile at the waitress and exclaim over how nice her meal looked, and not shout the only thought reverberating in her head. Once the woman was far enough away, she leaned over the table.

 _That's where they train FBI agents!_ she hissed. _At Quantico!_

There was something she couldn't identify in his face as he picked up his knife and fork. _Yes, interesting connection, that._

 _It isn't a coincidence,_ she insisted.

 _I didn't say it was._ He met her accusatory gaze calmly. _Honestly, the proximity of you and me to the Academy is probably the only reason we're here right now._

 _But… We weren't at the academy._

 _True,_ he allowed, cutting into his steak. _But you're rather good at finding ways into places you're not supposed to be._ He took a bite. _Sometimes you took me along for the ride, just for kicks._

 _Kicks, right,_ she rolled her eyes, and turned to her own food. _Like I dragged around a fully trained Marine for kicks._

He grinned. _What can I say? I did enjoy being useful to you._

They ate in silence for a few minutes, him with his steak and her with her fish, and for a time, there weren't any questions or statements or declarations of _True_ or _False_. When they finished their wine they got more, and when they finished their food, they simply sat. It was late now; half the restaurant was gone, and they had a bit more room to spread out. When the dessert menus came, she attempted to corner him into revealing her favorite, but he shook his head vehemently. _I would never presume to tell someone what sort of dessert she likes._

Finally, they compromised, because she couldn't pick anything. The pie sounded just as good as the cake, which sounded just as good as the ice cream, which sounded just as good as the homemade cookies. They got three different things, and shared them all.

While they were waiting for the desserts, she fiddled with her wineglass, and watched him out of the corner of his eye. He was more comfortable now, having been able to push his chair back once the party behind them left, and he had taken off his suit jacket, hanging it over the back of the chair. He had on a simple white button-down underneath it, but it fit very well, and she found her eyes lingering on the places the muscles of his arms and chest strained against the fabric.

She found herself wishing she were wearing something more complimentary, something that would make him stop and stare, too.

 _What?_ he asked finally, when the silence had dragged on long enough, and her eyes had perhaps become too lazy as they focused on him.

She shook her head, looking up to his face. _Nothing,_ she said. At another time, an earlier time, she might've blushed at being caught. But right now she simply did not care. Let him know.

 _Ah, well,_ he said, reaching for his wine _. Surely that can't be true. You must have more questions for me, right? You always have questions._

She smiled a little, fingering the edge of her napkin. She did have questions, he was right. And she liked that he was offering now, to answer them. He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to do any of this.

She cast around in her mind, trying to think of what was most pressing. But nothing came to mind. The food and the wine and the warm atmosphere of the little restaurant—and him—had lulled her senses. She did not feel that old desperate urgency to know. She was still curious, sure, but about the little things now. The small details. The brief moments…

 _You never told me how we met,_ she realized, straightening her back against the small booth she was seated in. _You told me what we were doing and where we were, but… How'd we actually meet? Through friends or something?_

 _I guess you could say that…_ He smiled, catching her eye. _True or false,_ he offered.

She shrugged. Why not? _Sure. True or false._

 _I met you through a janitor_.

She frowned. _False,_ she replied, lifting her hand to stifle a yawn.

He shook his head. _True._

She waved a hand, acknowledging that as true, perhaps, if ridiculous, and suggested that he move on. He watched her for a moment, seated there across from her, as she reached for her wine. There was not much left, but she took a sip anyway. He eyes were still on her, warmer now, when he spoke again:

 _The first time we met, you put a knife to my neck and threatened to kill me._

She nearly choked on her wine. _False!_ She all but shouted the word, and he had to shush her so the few other diners left in the restaurant weren't disturbed. _False,_ she hissed again, fully awake now, as she leaned over the table towards him, pointing a finger in his face. _False, I did not do that!_

 _Yes, you did,_ he grinned, laughing now at her outrage. _You cornered me in the bathroom. Like a psycho._ His smile widened as he added, _Kind of like_ Psycho _, actually—have you seen that again yet?_

She shook her head, ignoring whatever joke he was trying to make. _Now you're just lying to make fun of me. I never did that._

He put his hand over his heart. _God's honest truth. I swear. I'll swear—_ He glanced around, as if for something significant, then gave up. _I'll swear on whatever you want,_ he finished. _It's true._

She was quiet a moment, watching him. Then she bent forward, put her elbows on the table, and propped up her chin. She fixed him with a very hard, very skeptical stare. _You honestly expect me to believe that you fell in love with a woman who put a knife to your neck in lieu of saying hello?_

He smiled a little, and his eyes were kind when they found hers. _I didn't have much choice in the matter, as it turned out,_ he murmured.

Despite herself, she smiled a little back. She let one of her hands fall from supporting her chin to rest, palm up, on the table. For a few quiet seconds, he kept his eyes on hers, without speaking. Her hand remained untouched between them. She pressed her thumb hard against the side of her index finger so she wouldn't reach out any further.

 _True or false,_ she said. _I said I love you first._

He shook his head, rapping his knuckles against the side of the table. _Come on. Don't be so obvious now._

 _What?_ she replied. She still had her hand on the table. She could feel her fingertips tingling with the want to be touched by his. _How am I being obvious?_

He could point out any number of things: the heat she could feel in her cheeks now; her outstretched hand; the way she still couldn't look away from him. He could point out how her leg had accidentally bumped against his a minute ago and how neither of them had moved.

 _You're being obvious because you already know the answer,_ he said finally, straightening his chair. _It was me that said I love you first. Of course it was me._

 _Of course,_ she echoed. Her voice was distant, even to herself. She could not stop looking at him and she had just become aware that they were closer now, each leaning over the table, than they had been all night. She could feel his leg against hers beneath the table; could feel the warmth of him even through their clothes. Her hand was still lying empty on the table, but she didn't care about that anymore, because when she looked at his face, she didn't want to hold his hand. She wanted to kiss him and be kissed by him and she wanted to know what it felt like, when someone loved you so much he would follow you into oblivion, regardless of whether or not it would work out in his favor.

She whispered his name, and tried to find a way to ask for what she wanted, but before she could manage any semblance of English, the waitress arrived again, carrying their many desserts. It was a blessing in disguise, she thought, as they passed plates back and forth, and stole bites over the table. She didn't know how to ask him for these things. Besides, he was already giving her so much.

x x x

It was nearly ten-thirty by the time they'd finally finished eating, and paid, and left the restaurant. The pouring rain had stopped, leaving a faint mist in its wake, and when he offered her the umbrella, she shook her head. The cool mist felt good on her overheated skin, and with every step they took through it, she swore she was getting some of her sanity back.

He had played along tonight valiantly, she knew, but she also knew she had pushed him. She had pushed him probably farther than he would have normally allowed, or normally liked, but he hadn't said no, because…

 _It was me that said I love you first. Of course it was me._

She would have to keep that in mind going forward, she knew. He was incredibly devoted, yes, but it was not necessarily to her. It was to the former her, and sure, it was true, sometimes she felt them blending. Surely he felt it. But first and foremost, she knew, his loyalty was to that woman he'd fallen in love with all those years ago, and not this new stranger that now inhabited her body.

They walked along quietly, ambling back the way they'd come, and she did her best to resist every urge to sidle up next to him. Even though it wasn't raining out anymore, it was still cold, and now late into the night, and she was not exactly dressed for the weather. As they walked, she shot sidelong glances in his direction, jealous of how untouched he seemed by the temperature. He was bigger than her—she supposed that made a difference. But she still felt like he was flaunting it in her face.

When they came off the side streets, and hit one of the larger avenues, they had to wait to cross. They had been walking with a good foot of space between them since they left the restaurant, but on the curb, they stopped a little closer together. She was not close enough to touch him, but her shivering sent her rocking, and every couple seconds, she inadvertently bumped against him.

 _Do you want my coat?_ he asked, noticing.

She shook her head, just another tremble amidst the rest. _Fine,_ she bit out through chattering teeth.

He sighed. _Take the coat._

 _It's cold. You keep it. You need it._

 _It's only March. Believe it or not_ , _I think I'll survive._

He took it off and passed it to her before she could say another word in protest, which was good, really, because she was freezing. She slipped her arms through the sleeves, and crossed them tightly over her chest. Her earlier indignation had disappeared, and she was suddenly glad he was bigger than her: there was more fabric to cover her. She wrapped herself tight and shivered in place for a moment until she was warm enough to stand still.

In the glow of the streetlight, she could see him looking at her.

 _What?_ she asked, feeling stupidly self-conscious. So what if she was cold? She was half his size.

 _True or false,_ he said.

She nodded along, an _Of course_ running through her mind as a smile played on her lips and she waited for the statement. When it didn't immediately come, she glanced over at him, confused. It wasn't until their eyes met that he spoke.

 _I can't remember the first time we kissed._

Her forehead furrowed at the ludicrous statement, and her mouth actually fell open in surprise. Part of her wondered if he'd really just said that, but his eyes had not left hers, and she could see a look them, different than his earlier kindness. Finally, she managed some words.

 _And you called_ me _obvious?_ she asked, turning fully to face him—to accuse him. But to tell the truth, she didn't mind so much. Not if this conversation was going to end where she thought it was going to end.

But to her surprise, he stayed serious, and shook his head at her write-offs. _True,_ he said quietly. _Really, I can't remember. Or at least, I don't think I can._

Her frown deepened. She clutched his coat closer. _What, were you drunk or something?_

He chuckled at the assumption, his eyes breaking from hers briefly. _No, not drunk. "High" would be more accurate, I guess. I was in the hospital,_ he added to the wide look in her eyes. _Morphine._

The humor immediately fell from her. She knew what that drug was for, how serious it was. _Morphine? Why were you on morphine?_ She looked him up and down anxiously, as if searching for injuries—as if he had only just now been hurt, and she could do something to help.

He smiled tightly. _It isn't like the movies, you know. We Marines do tend to get battlefield injuries every once in a while. Some are worse than others and require a bit of pharmaceutical help._

She nodded, coming back to the present, calming herself with the knowledge that this injury had happened long ago, and that he was not hurt now. _What does this have to do with the true or false game, though?_ she asked. She wanted to ask what it had to do with their first kiss, too, but she wasn't sure she could actually get those words out with a straight face like he could.

 _Well, see, you never admitted it… But I think you kissed me, while I was out of it. I have this hazy memory of you being there with me one night, while I was recovering, being closer to me than usual. I know you visited me when I was laid up—private hospital rooms are another thing you were good at breaking into, by the way—and I know we talked, but…_ He shook his head, staring down at her as if her face might offer the answers neither of their minds could remember. _There are parts I'm blank on. Conversations with you that I don't know if I dreamed or if I really experienced. Sensations that were… maybe real, or maybe just fantasies._ He smiled a little, and explained: _I liked you for a long while before you ever so much as looked twice at me._

Despite herself, despite him, despite what they were talking about, she found herself laughing. _Why does that not surprise me?_

He smiled, shrugged.

He was standing closer to her now, she could tell without having to look down at their feet. In her periphery, the reflected light on the wet pavement turned from green to yellow and then to red. They could walk across, if they wanted. But she didn't much feel like stepping away from him just now.

 _What did it feel like?_ she asked, her pride gone too, lost somewhere on that walk with his. _The kiss that might've been real, or might've been fake?_

 _I'm not sure…_ He tilted his head to the side as if in thought, and then lowered it a little. _Maybe you could remind me._

She grinned, and then quickly ducked her head at the suggestion. _Very smooth,_ she whispered when she could, lifting her head to meet his eyes once more.

 _Better be._ He laughed a little, and then shook his head at himself. _I'm trying my hardest here to do this right, you know,_ he murmured. _If you couldn't already from how so very subtle I'm being…_

 _I can tell,_ she whispered back. She removed a hand from his coat, and reached out for his. She squeezed it tight, and didn't let go. _I can tell, and I appreciate it, I do._

She looked at him for a moment more, holding his eyes, making sure they saw one another. Then she pushed herself up onto her toes to meet his taller frame, and kissed him.

It was soft, like a half-forgotten dream might be. Light, and slow. She held onto his hand and lifted her free one to cup the side of his face. His skin was cool, from the rain, but his lips were warm. She kept hers on his for as long as she could before she needed breath.

His eyes were still closed when she pulled back. His hand was resting lightly on her waist.

She smiled at him, watching him savor it, still holding onto his hand. Her other slipped from his cheek to his neck to his chest. She pulled on the collar of his shirt gently.

 _Feel like you're on morphine again, Marine?_

He laughed, his eyes flickering open. _No, sorry. You'll have to be a good deal more generous to get me to that level._

She rolled her eyes, and tugged on his hand, leading them across the rain-soaked streets. It must be nearly eleven, she thought, but the night felt so much closer to dawn as she walked through it with him. She glanced at him beside her, and for the first time since she'd come out of that bag, she felt at peace with who she was, and who she once had been. She was not so worried, as she used to be, about who she might become.

x x x

 **A/N** : Thank you for reading! If you have thoughts, I would love to hear them! :)


	2. The Night I Looked at You

**Title** : _The Night I Looked at You_ (1/1)

 _ **A/N** : A small follow-up to my original "True or False" story. I've written a number of little snippets or stories set in this universe on tumblr, and my plan is to upload them all in (hopefully) chronological order as new chapters. This one picks up directly where "True or False" ended. Title and feels are courtesy of Etta James. Please enjoy. :)_

* * *

Most of the rest of the walk back to her apartment was spent in silence. Every once in a while he would speak, or she would speak, and they'd play the true-or-false game for a couple seconds. But mostly they kept quiet, hands clasped together, and walked. It took about twenty minutes for them to get back to her apartment, and she thought nothing of it, when she led the way to her front stoop, her hand still wrapped around his, and took out her keys.

But his hand tugged against hers, catching against the current of her movement, and pulling them to an abrupt stop. She turned to look at him, key in hand.

"Maybe… another time," he said to her obvious confusion, meeting her eyes only briefly before gently extricating his hand from hers and glancing away.

"Oh." The word escaped from between her lips and hung between them, taut like their linked arms had just been. And then it dropped.

She didn't sound hurt—that relieved him—just caught off-guard. And that made him smile a little. The mere fact that she'd been ready to bring him inside without a second thought… He wasn't sure what to say. He lifted his head about found her eyes. "Look, Jane," began quietly. "It's just that—"

"You want to do this right, I remember," she finished for him, echoing his words from the street corner a half-hour ago. She smiled a little. "Again, I appreciate it."

He nodded in a way that made him seem excessively grateful for her unquestioning understanding, and she had to bite her tongue so she wouldn't say anything else.

She wanted to tell him that there wasn't any right or wrong where they were concerned—or at least, there couldn't be, not anymore. A handful of months ago they'd been engaged to be married, and now they'd just gone on their second first date—there were no rules for this sort of relationship. No precedent. They could do whatever they wanted, including him coming into her apartment. And if he was worried about the suggestion of that—well, nothing even had to happen once he stepped inside.

But if something _did_ happen…

She looked at him and she wanted to tell him that she was not worried, or scared, or naïve. She wanted to tell him that she had had dreams of them together, that she had remembered what it had felt like when they had shared a bed and been in love. She wanted to tell him that there was a small but rapidly growing part of her that very much wanted to do more than simply remember, that wanted to feel it all again.

But she had pushed him to his limit already tonight, of that there was no doubt. She suddenly remembered kissing him on that street corner, remembered how he'd kept his eyes closed afterwards. She had thought at the time that he had been savoring it, but now she wondered if it had been more about holding himself back from more. From wanting more, taking more, giving in to more.

"Another time?" he said again, breaking through her thoughts, and she nodded, knowing she could give him this, after all he'd given her.

"Sure," she agreed. "Another time."

He nodded quickly, looking relieved, and then stepped forward to press a quick kiss to her cheek. "Night, Jane," he whispered, and then pulled back.

It took every ounce of willpower she had not to grab onto him and hold him to her, to pull him inside, to start up another round of true-or-false, only one that they couldn't play in public this time. She crossed her arms tightly across her chest instead, though, holding herself in check as he stepped away. If he wanted to do things right, fine. She could do things right—well, she could try.

She stood on the stoop and watched him go, watched him step back and head down onto the sidewalk. He paused for a second at the curb, sparing a last quick glance and smile for her, before taking off across the street, and disappearing down the road and out of sight. She stood there for a few minutes more, still, watching the wet pavement, the streetlights, the few cars that sped past. It wasn't until the wind picked up and she hunched in on herself to beat back the cold, that she realized she still had his coat on, and that he had never asked for it back.

She smiled, taking out her key and fitting it into the lock. Once the warmth of the entry room hit her, she shed the damp coat and tossed it over her shoulder. When she turned her face into it, she could just barely smell what she wanted through the rain and the cold: _him_.

She smiled to herself, breathing in deep, wondering if this was something else with a hidden meaning that she only realized after the fact. Had he wanted to stay, but perhaps not trusted himself, or not been ready, or not thought either of them capable or clear-headed enough?

Or perhaps he had just forgotten the coat, simple as that, and there was nothing more to it.

Either way, she didn't mind. He was gone, but he'd be back. And in the meantime, at least she had a little part of him to keep her company.


	3. New and Old

_**A/N** : Another add-on to the "True or False" universe. This one is built off of the _Psycho _reference in the first chapter, as a friend of mine from tumblr wanted to see some more of it. :)_

* * *

"Just start it already," Jane called from the kitchen, rummaging around in the fridge until she found the last couple beers hiding in the bottom drawer. "I'll be in in a minute."

"I'm not starting it without you; I don't want you to miss anything," Oscar called back from the living room. "You do realize that I'm about to show you one of the greatest films of all time, right? It's a _classic_. You need to be here from start to finish."

She rolled her eyes, straightening up and shutting the fridge. He had been talking up this movie for the last four days ever since she'd asked about it and they'd decided to watch it. "It'll just be the credits at the beginning; I won't miss anything," she replied, opening the drawer by the stove to retrieve the bottle opener. "Just hit play; I can hear from here."

"I'm not hitting play until you're _here_ ," he repeated. "Do you know how many people wish they could see this movie for the first time all over again? Or see _any_ movie for the first time again?"

"I'm sorry, are you implying that my obliterated memory is somehow a blessing in disguise?"

He sighed heavily from the other room. "I'm not going that far. I'm just saying there are things to enjoy about it, okay? Little perks."

"Like watching old movies from the 1960s," she commented, coming into the living room and meeting him on the couch. "Wow, what a perk."

He frowned at her dry tone, taking the bottle she offered, and moving aside so she could sit. "What, are you a modern movie snob now? You won't watch anything unless it's in full color and high-definition?"

She shrugged, taking a sip of her drink. "There are perks to clarity, you have to admit. Plus—" She grew animated. "—all modern effects are cool, too. The blue screen or whatever they call it—you know they can make it show anything they want after they film it? They can make it be a cityscape or an ocean or deep space or an army of—"

He sighed. "Patterson's been showing you all those idiotic comic book movies, hasn't she?"

"Maybe," Jane replied begrudgingly, looking a little embarrassed. "I don't really get all the storylines and stuff, but… I don't know. The explosions are cool."

He laughed. "And here I thought you'd have seen enough explosions in real life that you wouldn't want any more in your entertainment."

She smiled. "Yeah, but they're never so nicely stylized in real life, you know?" She pointed at the TV; the remote was closest to him. "So? Are we going to watch this 'classic' or not?"

"We are," he answered, then he frowned, glancing up at the ceiling. "One sec," he said, setting his beer on the coffee table before getting up. She settled into her side of the couch, thinking that if he had to go to the bathroom he should've done that before, when suddenly the whole apartment went dark.

She froze, instinctively looking around for him, frightened someone had broken in or cut the power. Even though he was long dead, she immediately thought of Carter. The last time she'd been in the dark… She sat very still, waiting for her eyes to adjust. She could hear a pair of footsteps moving gingerly across the floor, and she whispered Oscar's name, tightening her grip on her beer bottle as if it were a weapon, not certain if it was him moving around in the dark or not.

"What?" Oscar replied in a normal volume. And then: "Jane, why are you whispering?"

"Well, I thought—" She realized her foolishness just as she felt him sit back on the far side of the couch. She felt her face heat, and was momentarily grateful for the dark so that he couldn't see her. "Why'd you turn off all the lights?" she demanded.

"It's a scary movie," he said, as if that explained things. And then, remembering her state of mind, he added: "You're supposed to watch them in the dark. Adds to the suspense."

"Surely not _this_ dark." She put her hand in front of her face. "I can hardly see."

"So what? Wait, are you—" He fabricated a shocked gasp. "— _scared_?"

She pursed her lips taunting, glaring at the dark form on the other side of the couch she assumed had to be him. "If I could see you, I would hit you in the face."

"Guess it's a good thing you can't see me, then."

Before she could say anything else, he pointed the remote at the TV and the movie started up. Immediately, the dark room was filled light, with the noise of racing strings, and sliding graphics. The strings layered atop one another as lines and words shifted and danced across the screen, each successive instrument adding a higher tone, building the tension along with the moving words.

Ten minutes in, though, and the endless, staccato strings lost their effect. In fact, they were becoming a bit grating. A lot grating. In between voiceovers, while the runaway secretary drove out of town with her bounty, Jane leaned over to Oscar.

"Okay, when are they going to cut it out with the strings? My ears are hurting. I think they might start bleeding."

"Shh," he whispered beside her in lieu of replying, his eyes focused on the TV, and she frowned. She was not used to being denied by him—or ignored. She found she really didn't like it.

After a second, she turned back to the TV, though, too. The runaway secretary had pulled into a vacant roadside motel and was talking with the owner now. The young man was petting a collection of stuffed dead birds he kept on a table by the door as they talked.

"He's creepy," she whispered, cutting through the characters' conversation.

Silently, Oscar nodded at her side, not taking his eyes off the TV. After a moment of waiting for a reply she knew wouldn't come, she followed suit, and listened to the two strangers on-screen converse.

 _You know what I think?_ the young motel owner was saying. _I think that… We're all in our private traps. Clamped in them. And none of us can ever get out. We scratch and claw, but… Only at the air. Only at each other. And for all of it, we never budge an inch._

 _Sometimes we deliberately step into those traps,_ the secretary replied. She sounded too wise, Jane thought. Or at least, she pretended to be too wise.

 _I was born in mine,_ the young man replied pleasantly. _I don't mind it anymore._

 _Oh, you should,_ the woman insisted. _You should mind it._

 _Oh, I do! …But I say I don't._

Jane glanced at Oscar out of the corner of her eye, wondering after the dialogue. If she hadn't suggested they watch this movie herself, to unravel that "psycho" comment of his, she would've wondered if there was a reason he'd showed it to her. She looked at him and she wondered what side of things he was on: did he think they had trapped themselves, or each other, here? Did he mind being stuck, or not?

He was too intent on the movie to notice her staring, and for a while, she let the black-and-white scenes pass her by, wondering what was going on in his head. Ever since that dinner the other week, ever since they'd kissed, she had grown only more comfortable around him. And he had seemed more comfortable, too. Relaxed. Happy, even.

But she wondered if that wasn't what it was, if that wasn't really how he felt. She wondered if he was just selling himself this new reality, these new feelings, in order to cover up the old, in order to land a second chance. Was he just making the best out of what he had here with her, and learning to act like it was what he really wanted?

The thought made her horribly uncomfortable, but still she couldn't help looking to him. If that was the case, she wanted to know. If this—them being together—was all about recreating what was lost, and nothing more, she wanted to know now, before it went any farther. Just like she couldn't be Taylor for Kurt, she couldn't be the disappeared fiancée for Oscar. She couldn't be anyone but herself—whoever that was.

"Aren't you paying attention at all?"

Even though it was said in a whisper, she jumped at the question, finding his eyes suddenly on hers.

"What are you looking at me for? _Jane, this is the scene_."

For a second, she didn't know what he was talking about, and then she remembered why they were watching this movie in the first place. She looked back at the TV; on it, the runaway secretary was in her motel room, getting ready to shower. Jane watched closely, her eyes following every movement onscreen as the woman got up from her chair and moved into the bathroom. Ever since Oscar had hinted at their first meeting, of her cornering him in the bathroom with a knife, she had imagined it a hundred different ways.

She imagined how she had surprised him when he'd walked in, how she'd been hiding behind a door and had quickly disarmed him. Or she pictured that she'd watched him from afar, and snuck in after him when she was certain he was alone, desperate for whatever information she'd needed that he'd had. Or maybe they had fought, and she had brought out the knife as a last resort.

What she not imagined was sneaking up behind him while he'd been naked in a shower. As she watched, a shadowy figure on screens ripped open the shower curtain and lunged forward toward the naked woman—

"Oh, gross," Jane cried out. "Tell me I am not _that_ psycho! Tell me I didn't corner you while you were—"

"Jane, _shh,_ watch the—"

"Oh, and come on! Could they be any more fake?" she groaned a moment later, pointing at the TV, as the intruder began to attack the naked woman with quick cuts of a knife that were never shown on screen, while the soundtrack grew to a crescendo in the background. "And the strings are back, joy."

"Hey!" Oscar pointed the remote at the TV as dark blood began to fill the bottom of the shower, and paused the movie. "This is one of the most iconic scenes in cinematic history! Show some respect!"

"Why?" Jane shot back. "Because it was scary for 1960? It's obviously fake! Look at the camera angles, look at the blood—it isn't even close to real! The knife doesn't even touch her skin, I mean, it's like they weren't even _trying_!"

" _Ugh_." He groaned, tipping his head back against the couch. "I can't believe it. Memory wiped, and you still have the same stupid complaints!"

"What? I can't have my own opinion?"

"Of course, but—" He shook his head. "You're so damn picky."

"Oh, well, I'm sorry I don't like movies that so obviously look staged."

"You have to judge it within its time, Jane! It was real for the sixties—"

"So?! It's the twenty-tens now, and it looks fake!"

"Can't you suspend your disbelief for one moment and just enjoy it? I mean, come on! This movie was a big deal— _is_ a big deal! They have it _preserved_ , Jane! It's in the Library of Congress, that's how important this movie is!"

She leaned back against the couch, and eyed him carefully. "Is this your favorite movie or something?" she asked warily. "Are you going to get mad if I don't like it?"

He laughed, sinking back into the couch as well. "No, no, it's not. And if I got mad at every time you didn't like something that I liked, we never would've carried on a conversation for longer than ten minutes." He smiled, shaking his head. "And I'm not mad, Jane, don't worry. It's just—honestly, it's funny." He watched her a moment, and out of habit, she straightened, as if he were judging her, and she wanted to measure up. "I keep thinking you're someone else, is all," he began quietly. "Or—Or I try to think you're someone else, because that made it easier, before, when we were apart. I just told myself you were gone, and you weren't coming back, and that was that. But you're here now and you say these things, and you talk through movies, and you—" He shook his head, breaking off, but he was smiling. "You're still in there somewhere," he whispered. "And it's nice to know that, is all."

She nodded, trying for a smile herself, but it got stuck halfway up her face. She looked down, saw his hand lying on the couch, and wanted to reach out for it. But she wanted his honesty more, and she didn't know if touching him would change things. She took a breath, but couldn't manage to lift her eyes.

"You know I'm not… I might never totally come back," she whispered, staring at the fabric of the couch between them. "I remember some things, I remember you, and us being together, but…" She looked up at him. She felt guilty for the concern she saw on his face. She did not deserve his comfort or pity, not after she'd abandoned him. "I might not remember everything," she whispered, feeling like she was confessing something horrid. Which, she supposed, she was. "Part of me is the old me, I know, but the other part of me… I'm different now. I can't just go back to who I was before like these past few months have meant nothing. I can't—can't just go back like nothing's happened, I don't know how—"

"Hey," he cut quietly when she grew frantic. "Jane, easy. That's not what I'm asking from you. That's not what I want, or why I'm here." At the doubtful look on her face, he added, "I mean, at the beginning, sure. There was nothing in the world I wanted more than for you to come back to me, just like you had been before. But…" He shrugged weakly. "That isn't possible. I know that. And I'm okay with that. These last few weeks, getting to know you again—the new you—it's been good for me. It's been helpful to adjust my perspective."

She looked over at him, not sure if she should ask. In the end, she had no choice. Like everything else she asked him, she had to know. "And?" she asked in a whisper. "What's your perspective on me now?"

"My perspective on you now…" He paused a moment, watching her. She was calm under his gaze again; it felt kind once more, and not critical. "My perspective on you now is that you're still awful to watch movies with. Really, I don't even know why I tried. And you're no fun to reminisce with—" He smiled a little, so she knew he was joking. "—but you know what, at least you wear clothes I like this time around."

She blinked, caught off-guard by that last one. "Clothes?" she repeated, a laugh bubbling forth. "You like my _clothes_? You can't be serious." She looked down at what she was wearing now: the same black tank top she'd worn to work, and a pair of blue jeans. She glanced over at him, and saw their outfits weren't much different: he was in jeans, too, and a dark green t-shirt.

"You used to be too fashionable," he explained with a wry smile. "It was hard to keep up." He made a face. "I always looked like a shabby sidekick standing next to you. Like some guy you picked up on the side of the road."

"Okay, I highly doubt you dressed _that_ badly, Oscar."

But she chuckled a little at the thought nevertheless, trying to imagine it. It was hard, picturing her past self. Harder still, picturing her past self with good fashion sense. She filed away that fact, though, thinking Tasha and Patterson might get a kick out of it the next time she saw them.

"Well, your suit from the other night was nice," she said quietly.

He smiled, catching her eye. "Yeah, my one good outfit."

She knew he was making light, but the thought still made her cringe. She still felt bad about how she'd thought he'd been kidding about wanting to have dinner with her. "I'm sorry you wasted it on me," she said quietly.

He shook his head. "You didn't make me waste anything, Jane. I loved that dinner."

"I loved that kiss."

It took her a second to realize the words she'd thought had actually come out of her mouth.

"I—I mean—"

He reached for her hand. "Don't take it back. Please," he whispered, and she could hear an edge of pleading in his voice. Her eyes found his. "I loved it too, you know," he whispered.

She smiled a little, and then turned away, before they could lose themselves in that night again. She caught sight of the TV again, and remembered the reason why they were watching this movie in the first place.

"You still haven't told me about that," she reminded him, gesturing at the screen. "About why I cornered you in a bathroom with a knife."

"Oh, well, if I tell you all the answers, you'll have no need to hang around me anymore," he teased.

Jane shook her head. "I'm not just here for the answers," she said quietly. She met his eye. "You have to know that, Oscar."

He nodded. "Yeah, I know." He rubbed his thumb gently across the back of her hand. "And I'm not just here for the old you," he added quietly. "You have to know _that_ , Jane."

She nodded back, and they sat there for a moment, looking at each other. Each was half-illuminated by the light from the paused television, and she smiled a little, at the sight of his face half lit, half cast in shadow. She would've thought it frightening, months ago; or mysterious, weeks ago. But now she looked at him and just saw him, be it in the dark or the light.

Then her gaze dropped, and she bent forward a little, and he did too, and then she bridged the space, and he met her there, and they were kissing again. It was the first time they'd kissed since the dinner last Friday, and she was silently so very grateful to be able to feel the touch of his lips on hers again. The warmth of his mouth, the light scratch of his sparse stubble against her cheeks… She shifted closer to him, lifting a hand to cup the back of his neck.

She brushed her fingers through his hair with a smile and, feeling it thick and messy as usual, she couldn't help but think of the other week, when he'd taken her out to dinner, combed it into order, and worn that nice suit. She smiled, thinking of the t-shirt and jeans he was wearing now, and thinking that she didn't know which she preferred. She found herself wondering what he'd look like in a uniform, with a shaved head, wondering what he'd been like when he'd been in the military. What she'd been like in the military.

What they had been like together, before and after the ring.

"We should finish the movie," he said, the moment they broke apart for a bit of air.

She shook her head. "I don't really care what happens at the end," she whispered, pulling him close again.

"But it's really important," he murmured against her lips. "It's one of the biggest twists in—"

"Will you shut up about the damn movie, please? Else I'll go get a knife and re-enact that shower scene for you."

He pulled back, and grinned. "So are you saying I should get naked and wait for you in the bathroom, then? Because I am more than on board with that plan."

She shook her head, scowling. "Get out of my apartment," she muttered, elbowing him in the side, but a second later she laid her head against his shoulder, effectively blocking any movement on his part.

He smiled, and reached a hand up to cup the side of her neck. She closed her eyes when she felt him press a kiss to her hair.

"This is nice," she whispered after a moment, her head still tucked into his shoulder. "Being here with you like this."

He nodded, shifting a little closer to her. "It is nice," he agreed.

After a moment she turned, and tipped her head towards the television and the scene frozen on its screen. "You can hit play, you know. We can watch the rest of it, if you want."

He hesitated for just a moment.

"You promise you'll pay attention, Jane? Keep that empty mind of yours open?"

She caught his eye, adding the silent stipulation: "And keep my big mouth shut?"

He smiled. "Maybe just be a little quieter," he suggested politely. "The end's really good, and it loses its impact if you talk over it."

"I'll try my best."

"You always do."

* * *

 ** _A/N_** _: Thank you for reading! Reviews would be lovely. :)_


	4. Afternoon Out

**Title** : _Afternoon Out_ (1/1)

 _ **A/N** : Oscar re-introduces Jane to baseball. Total fluff. Enjoy! :)_

* * *

"Okay, quiz me."

Oscar shook his head, stepping beside her in line as they queued up in front of the gate, tickets in hand. "Jane, it's not a test. It's a game. This is supposed to be _fun,_ " he reminded her patiently.

She ignored him, staring up at the huge facade that loomed over them. It was all stone and huge columns and gold lettering. She remembered Patterson talking to her once about the old coliseums in Rome, and she wondered if this is what they'd looked like, ages ago. It seemed silly to her, that people would put that much effort into sports.

"Quiz me," she repeated. "I want to make sure I get this right."

He drew in a breath, and then sighed loudly. She silently noted his disapproval and once again ignored it. "Fine," he muttered after a second, realizing she, as usual, was not going to give up until she got what she wanted. "Tell me: How many people are on each team?"

"Nine."

"What's the point of the game?"

"To get as many points as you can."

"And how do you do that?"

Jane ran through the description he'd given her earlier, during the subway ride down to the stadium. "Okay, so the pitcher throws the ball, and then the batter hits it or doesn't hit it—and if he does, and it's caught immediately, he's out, and he doesn't get to hit anymore. But if no one catches it, he gets to run around the bases as fast and far as he can, trying to get back to home, the base he started on, and if he does, then his team gets a point. Run," she added as an afterthought, nodding sharply, as if to make herself remember.

He smiled a little at her response, and nodded. Her habits of drilling information into herself were familiar to him still. "Good job. That's the gist of it."

But she was still thinking, still working through all the information she'd absorbed in the hour trip down to the stadium, as they shuffled forward in line, nearing the gates. "And if you miss hitting a ball, you get a strike, and you can only get…" She hesitated a moment, biting her lip, thinking. "How many strikes do you get before you're out?" she wondered, thinking aloud.

"T—" he started to say.

" _Shh_ ," she hissed, her hand shooting up to cover his mouth. She shut her eyes, thinking hard. She knew if she looked at him, he'd ruin her process again. _Two or three,_ she thought. She couldn't remember. "Two," she said finally, not certain, dropping her hand from his face and opening her eyes.

"Three," he corrected, looking more than a little pleased.

She shook her head, and followed behind him as they took a few more steps forward in the line. "Damn," she muttered. She glanced ahead, noticed they weren't far from the ticket-takers now, and ran through the information once more in her head. She wanted to have it all down straight before they got inside. She didn't want to spend the whole game asking him questions about what was happening. She did that often enough during the rest of their time together.

"Okay," she murmured to herself, "so nine people two a team, two teams, a batter, a pitcher, and the fielders. You hit the ball, or you get struck out. Three strikes and you're out, and then you switch. If you hit the ball, you drop the bat and run counter-clockwise…"

At her side, Oscar laughed a little.

She looked up at him. "What?"

"Counter-clockwise," he repeated. "Never thought about it like that, but yeah. They do; they run counter-clockwise."

She watched him. "How did you think of it?"

He frowned a little, thinking. "Well… I don't really know, now that you ask. It was always just: run to first base, second base, third base, home." He tilted his head, giving the list another angle: "To the right, to the top, then downfield, then home."

A smile flickered at the edges of her lips as she watched him list it off. She had suspected this earlier, when he'd given her the run-down on the train, but she'd been too busy focusing on what he was saying to ask. "Did you used to play?" she wondered now.

"Oh, as a kid," he replied, shuffling forward with the line. "Mostly with friends. I was on my school's team in middle school, for a little bit. I wasn't ever very good, though."

"More fun to watch?" she guessed.

He smiled, and gestured that she should step forward; they were at the gates now. "Very fun to watch," he replied.

* * *

The stadium was already teeming with people when they made their way to the stairs and bounded up the many flights to the higher tiers of seating. Neither of them tired on the way up, and by the time they reached their landing, they'd bypassed at least forty people, and earned a couple tired and awed, _Jeez_ es, from exhausted onlookers.

When they made it out from under the stone awnings and into the sun, Jane instinctively lifted a hand to shield her eyes before she remembered she had a hat on. Her hand dropped uselessly to her side, and she followed behind him as he led the way to their section, and row, and seats. She had felt silly, earlier today when he'd arrived at her apartment and tossed her the dark navy blue hat with the white lettering.

 _I don't wear hats,_ she'd said.

 _It's baseball,_ he'd replied, as if that settled the matter, and then he'd put it on her head.

Now, glancing around, she realized what he'd meant: she could not see one person around her that was not wearing a hat. Some didn't have the bright white _NY_ emblazoned on the front, but they were in the extreme minority. She felt surrounded by navy and white—and not just the hats, but the jerseys and the coats and even the facepaint. She stared at that, hypnotized by people who would willingly mar their skin in public. But she supposed temporary pain was different than permanent ink.

"So," she said as they sat down, taking seats 14 and 15, "I guess I know who we're rooting for?"

He smiled, catching her eye, his gaze quickly skipping up to the letters stitched onto her cap. "Well, we are in New York. Generally, it's safest to cheer for the Yankees when in New York." He laughed a little, "And be grateful the Sox aren't here."

She frowned, finding her eyes immediately drawn to other peoples' feet. "What socks?"

He grinned. "Oh, so you haven't seen any brawls yet, have you?" At the frown of confusion on her face, he leaned close and whispered in her ear, " _Boston_."

She frowned, remembering that name from geography lessons with Patterson, but not understanding why it was relevant at this moment. "That city in Massachusetts? What about it?"

"The Sox—the Red Sox, they're from Boston—they've got this huge rivalry with New York. If they're playing against each other and it's a big game, sometimes things can get a little messy. So good thing they're not here today, or you might have to turn into an off-duty cop."

Jane remembered him using the word _brawls_ a moment ago. She looked out at the rows and rows of seating in front of her, guessing there must be tens of thousands of people here already—and the stadium wasn't even half-full yet. "Are saying people get in fights? Actual fights—over _baseball_?"

"Oh, it's fairly common," he replied easily. "It's all part of the rivalry—and trust me, it can get a lot worse than brawls in the stands. It's stupid, sure, and yet it lives on."

"Why did it start?"

He blew out a breath. "Why? Well, it goes back forever. I mean, just in baseball, you've got the selling of Babe Ruth, the Curse, the Yankees winning again and again…" After a second of thought, he added, "But you could trace it all the way back to the founding of the country, really. I mean, it manifests itself best now in sports, but Boston and New York have had it out for each other ever since the pilgrims and the Boston Tea Party and the creation of the—"

Jane snorted. "Two cities got in a fight over a tea party?" She rolled her eyes at the idea. "What, did Boston not invite New York or something?" she wondered.

He stared at her for a moment, as if not comprehending as well—and then he burst out laughing.

"What?" she demanded, prickling at once. Despite all the stares and the comments the tattoos brought her, and how used to it she'd gotten, laughter was something that still rankled her.

He didn't answer at once, and every time he looked like he was about to speak, he laughed again, until she finally punched him in the shoulder and ordered, " _Stop_ laughing at me!"

"I'm sorry," he called out, though the smile on his face betrayed no real sorrow at all. "It's just—" He shook his head, massaging his shoulder a little. "You're so serious. You don't even know what you're talking about, and still…" He stared at her, his smile widening. "God, I love this," he whispered.

She glared at him. "You love it when I'm stupid," she surmised flatly.

"No," he corrected, "I love it when _I'm_ _smart_. It's a welcome change. I gotta be honest: it's really nice being the smarter one in this relationship for once."

She rolled her eyes. "So you know the rules of baseball and the history of some stupid rivalry. I don't think that qualifies you as being smarter than me."

"At our current location, it absolutely does. I'm a genius here. You're like a two-year-old. You don't even know how many strikes it takes to get out!"

"Three! It takes three!"

"Oh, look, she's _learning_."

The next punch he saw coming, and he blocked before she could land it. She scowled, angry as he held her closed fist tight in his, and she started to lash out again—but he saw the next fist coming too, and caught that one as well. Fists gone and not willing to kick him in case it made a scene—she did not want to be one of those brawlers he'd talked about—she settled for glaring at him. He simply smiled back, knowing exactly what she was doing.

"Can I let go of your fists now?" he asked pleasantly after a moment.

"I don't know," Jane bit out, not taking her eyes off him. "Can you?"

Half of his mouth flickered up into a self-satisfied smirk. "Always so volatile," he murmured, and then he let go of her hands. She jerked them back to her sides, flexing her fingers. When she glanced back over at him sourly, he was watching her carefully. He was expecting another hit, she knew. Well… She bit her tongue, remembering his talk of brawls again. The last thing she wanted to do was make a scene and get them kicked out. Surely she could hold herself in check for one game.

She watched the seats fill in around them for a while, and as their row started to fill up, she got used to standing and sitting in rapid succession to let people in. Baseball fans, as it turned out, came in all sizes and shapes and with all kinds of clothes and hats and _food_.

It was endless, the food, so much so that she ended up making a game with him about it. In the twenty minutes they waited for the game to start, they counted ten soft pretzels and fourteen hot dogs in their section alone. Looking across the stadium, she could see women with ice cream and teenagers with popcorn and kids with… she wasn't sure what. Jane squinted at the bright pink blobs of what had to be food (at least, she hoped it was, eight-year-olds were shoving it in their mouths), but she couldn't tell what they were.

"What is that?" she asked finally, tapping Oscar on the shoulder and then directing his attention a few sections over, where a little girl was holding one of each: a blue and a pink cloud of… she didn't know what.

"What, cotton candy?" he asked, turning back to her, as if it were the most natural answer in the world. When she still looked lost, he said, "Oh, come on. _Come on_ , don't tell me you haven't had cotton candy."

"I've never seen that before in my life," she answered. "Let alone eaten it." She frowned, watching one boy devour half of his serving in one huge, trailing bite. "What does it even taste like?"

"Pure sugar," Oscar answered with a laugh. "And food coloring."

Jane turned to him. "That's it? But… if it's just sugar and liquid, how is it so big?"

He leaned over. " _Magic_ ," he whispered in her ear, his voice so conspiratorial she couldn't help but laugh. He pulled back, wondering, "So you really haven't had it? Man, what have they been feeding you at the Bureau? Gruel?"

She laughed at the tone of fake disapproval in his voice. "Certainly not gruel, but certainly not candy, either," she replied. (Though that was a lie. Patterson kept a bag of candy in her lab and Jane had, on more than one occasion, joined the agent in dipping into her secret stash.) "Not candy like that," she amended after a moment, not wanting to tell him even the smallest lie, not with how truthful they'd been with one another recently.

"All right, that settles it."

She turned to see him on his feet.

"Where are you going?" she asked, immediately starting to rise, too. She didn't want to be left alone in this mass of people without him. Wherever he was going—she wanted to go with.

He smiled a little, as if maybe he could see that in her eyes. "I'm getting you cotton candy, obviously," he answered. "And I'll just be gone a few minutes, so just wait here." Reluctantly, she sat back down. She would rather follow after him, but she had no good excuse for wanting to except simply _wanting_. He was at the end of the row when he called back to her, "Hey, you want a beer or something? I'll probably grab one on my way back."

She blinked, taken aback. "We can… drink?" She glanced at her phone, checking the time. "It isn't even 2 PM."

He grinned. "Nothing more American than baseball, or alcohol. Why not do both at once?" Before she could say anything, he called out, "I'll get you something," and then bounded up the concrete steps.

By the time he got back, the game had started, the anthem had been sung (Jane didn't know the words but tried to hum along awkwardly, anxiously waiting for someone to call her out), and there was a runner on second. Their seats were so high up that it was hard to see details, but the huge televisions set up at either side of the field helped her keep up with where the ball was, and how each team was doing. She was straining to pay such close attention that she almost didn't notice it when Oscar appeared by her side. He held out a beer and a huge cloud of pink candy towards her, saying, "Be grateful for that. I had to battle three nine-year-old girls for the last pink one. Barely got away with my life."

She smiled, imagining him darting between baseball fans, little kids screaming on his heels. "Think you're in the clear?" she asked, as he settled in by her side.

He took a sip of his own drink. "Ah, let's hope so," he said. Then he sat back in his chair and they watched the game together. The first couple innings went quick, with the Yankees getting an edge on the Blue Jays early on. She ate her cotton candy—it was gone in about two minutes, deceptively delicious, it was—and they drank their beers, and talked about baseball strategy. It was a welcome respite from the other sorts of strategies they usually discussed, and despite his teasing earlier, she found she liked letting him talk, and liked listening to what he had to say. It was nice, learning from him.

* * *

It was sometime during the sixth inning, when the Blue Jays had gone all game without scoring a second run, that they finally managed to get a man to home, and Oscar burst out into cheers beside her. She turned to him, surprised—they were, after all, supposed to be cheering for the other team.

He shrugged when she asked why. "I cheer for anybody who makes a good play. And I especially like my underdogs," he added. He smiled to himself about something for a second, and then caught her eye. "You haven't been any further west than Jersey, have you?" he wondered slowly.

"No, why?"

He shook his head. "Nothing, just curious." When that was, of course, not a good enough explanation, he added, "I grew up outside Chicago. Illinois. The Cubs are my team—the underdog to beat all underdogs, and the single greatest disappointment of my life." She blinked at him, a little shocked and not knowing what to say, until he smiled and nudged her shoulder in reassurance. She smiled back, and found his hand.

"Maybe… Maybe we could go see them play sometime. Even if they prove to be a disappointment."

"Oh, they're always a disappointment," he replied genially. "But I keep cheering and hoping anyway. It's like a disease."

She smiled back, and was about to look back to the game, when he spoke again.

"But… that would be really nice," he said quietly, his voice pitched low beneath the crack of the bat and the shouts of the crowd. "I would love it if we went sometime. I'd love to show you Chicago."

Jane nodded along, and squeezed his hand. She liked the sincerity in his voice. "Again?" she teased, but he shook his head.

"Not again. You've never been there."

She blinked, quietly caught off-guard by this information, even though she wasn't sure why. She knew they'd met on the east coast, and in all their talks, he'd never mentioned them traveling west together, let alone to his home. She supposed it just surprised her, to find out that she'd never been to the place where he'd been born and raised. It made her sad to think about.

"Do you miss it?" she asked suddenly, leaning a little closer, wanting to know. She couldn't remember her home, let alone growing up there, so she had nothing to miss. But she wished she did. She wanted to know what it was like to miss something real, instead of missing simply being empty.

He tried to smile at her question, but she could see it was only a front. She waited for him to play it off, but when he spoke, it was quiet, and she knew it was the truth. "I do miss it," he said quietly. "I haven't been back since I joined up. In the fall, and in the spring, especially, I miss it a lot. I miss being by the lake, and…"

He grew quiet for a moment, lost in thought and memory, and she sat still by his side, not knowing what to say. She knew they'd met almost seven years ago while they'd both been in the military, and she knew he'd been serving for a few years before that. It could easily have been a decade or more since he'd last been home. She tried to open her mouth, tried to offer him some comfort—she knew what it was like to be without a home, didn't she?—but before she could speak, there was a roar from the crowd—someone had scored—and he jerked out of his melancholy.

"But it's nice here, too," he said quickly, squeezing her hand. Her eyes found his, and the hurried reassurance left him. She could feel it go, just as she could feel him tipping towards her, and her tipping towards him. "It's very nice here," he whispered, holding her gaze. "Especially now that you're with me."

She smiled, thinking she felt exactly the same way about him. New York had been fine before, when she'd just had the team and her detail and work, but it was utterly different now, with him. She wouldn't call it home, not yet, but she would call it more than a place to just exist, which is what it had been before, before he'd become a serious part of her life. She looked at him sitting across from her, and she struggled again to find the words—not of comfort this time, but of gratitude. She was so happy he was here, so happy he was willing to try again, despite all he'd been through and all she'd taken from him and all they'd both lost.

In the end, she couldn't think of the words, but that was okay. And they were surrounded by thousands upon thousands of people, but that didn't matter, either. There were so many people and, lost in the crowd as they were, they might as well have been alone. She bent her head to his, touched her lips to his, and let another kiss bloom between them.

He had been careful with her, since that dinner out the other month that had ended with their first kiss (or second first kiss, or even third first kiss, given their joint memory loss), and while she had appreciated how cautious he was being, she had also longed for more. And as he kissed her back now, in the middle of a crowded baseball stadium on a Sunday afternoon, she could tell he longed for it, too. She could feel the hard plastic of their seats' armrests between them, and she could tell from the way he was kissing her, from the way he was bent towards her, that if that barrier had not been between them, they would be just as close as she'd wanted, and dreamed of, and remembered.

"Now we're _really_ going to have to make that trip to Chicago happen," he murmured when he pulled away after a few seconds.

"And why's that?" she asked, still bent close enough to him that their noses touched.

His smiled, and brushed his fingers very gently along the hard lines and soft curves of her cheek. "Because: I've always wanted to make out with a girl at Wrigley Field."

She laughed, tipping her head against his. Their forehead bumped, and they kissed once briefly, and then again. She could feel his hand tightening on the side of her neck, and she smiled, leaning in close again, wanting more too, just as the sound of thousands of moving bodies made her look up. Her hand fell from his face, onto his chest, and it instinctively clutched at his t-shirt.

"Why is everyone getting up?" Jane looked around, watching all the bodies tower above her. "Is it over?"

Oscar chuckled at her side, taking her hand off his chest, and pulling her to his feet as he got to his. "No, it's not over. I'm sure it's just the—"

 _Alllll right, baseball fans! It's time for the seventh-inning stretch!_

"Stretch?" She glanced around, noticing people were touching their toes and stretching out their arms. She frowned. "Why are we stretching? We haven't been doing anything."

Oscar laughed, "Exactly. We've been sitting in these awful seats for two hours, drinking beer and fried food. Everyone needs to move a little bit."

She was about to protest that she hadn't had any fried food, but she supposed the cotton candy and the hot dog hadn't been much better. And he was right, moving felt good. And while it had been nice, leaning over her chair and into his, to talk and kiss and plan, parts of her were sore from the stiff seating. She was about to suggest they go for a walk around the park, and really stretch their legs, when music suddenly started filling the stadium. The announcer started counting down, and then suddenly the whole place erupted in song.

 _Take me out to the ballgame_

 _Take me out with the crowd…_

She stared in wonder at the people around her, surprised to see them all standing and joining in. And then she looked to him…

"You sing!" she called over the noise, laughing.

He grinned, "Not well, unfortunately."

… _some peanuts and Cracker Jack_

 _I don't care if I never get back…_

She was still smiling as the song went on, for he was still singing along with the rest, and when he noticed her watching, he nudged her side.

"Come on. You know the words."

She tapped her temple and raised her eyebrows. "No memory, remember?"

"Nah," he grinned. "This song is implanted in your very core. Everyone in this country comes out of the womb knowing it. I told you—nothing more American than baseball."

"And alcohol, apparently," she shot back.

"Oh, well, that always helps!" He grabbed his beer and clinked it against hers, taking a swallow before yelling out the last lines with the rest of the crowd:

 _For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out!_

 _At the old ball game…_

There was a smattering of wild cheers and applause after the song finished, and she joined in with the clapping simply because she hadn't been able to with the lyrics. Oscar leaned towards her, and as if reading her mind, he said, "Don't worry. You'll be able to sing along next time."

She smiled, catching his eye. She wasn't sure if that was a promise of more, but she'd take it as such. "Okay," she allowed, as the applause died out and the crowd started to part.

Many sat back down in their seats, as she and Oscar were doing, but many more moved about, heading back to concessions or visiting with friends. He watched her watch a crowd of men surge to the exits, and then he leaned over, saying, "Last call for alcohol," and she nodded, chuckling a little in understanding. It was a hot day; she supposed she couldn't blame them.

About thirty minutes later, though, she did find a way to blame someone. Two someones, in particular.

She hadn't noticed the shouting before simply because, well, it hadn't been so bad before. And she'd been too focused on learning the game. And being with Oscar. But come the start of the eighth inning, she couldn't focus on anything _but_ the shouting. The crowd around them had quieted down a good deal since the start of the game—numbed by sun and food and beer, no doubt—and so the woman's voice stood out even more against such a lethargic backdrop. It helped that she had a damn good pair of lungs.

"Oh, come _on_! Do your job, ump!" the woman screamed, as if the umpire could hear her all the way up here, while the man at bat settled in to take another hit. "That was clearly in the strike zone! Take him out!"

"See," Oscar murmured in her ear, reaching for his drink, "this is the bad part about being able to drink at sporting events." He smiled a second later, lifting the cup to his lips. "On the plus side," he added, taking a deep, final draw off his beer, "it's the good part, too. If you can't shut 'em up, drown 'em out."

Jane tried to smile, and reached for her own beer, too, when she heard another woman start shouting. This one was yelling in Spanish, but she recognized the voice at once—andwhen she recognized it, she realized she knew the first woman who had been shouting, too.

 _Oh, God_.

She felt like someone had just poured a bucket of ice water down her back. Immediately, she shrank down in her seat, instinctively curling into Oscar even as she knew doing so only incriminated her further. Not a half hour ago, she'd been making out with him like a teenager, thinking they were safe in this stadium of _fifty thousand people—_

She felt another chill, and this one made her hands go numb.

They could fit the entire FBI in this stadium. Maybe the entire CIA. All of the law enforcement officials in the city could probably fit in this stadium. They could all potentially be here and see her, or worse, see _him_ …

"Hey." Oscar frowned at her fetal stance. "What's up with you? Are you oka—"

"The screaming women," she whispered, leaning further into him. "I know them."

"What, the drunks?" He frowned when she didn't move, and instead continued to hide against him. "You do?" he asked, starting to turn around.

"Don't look!" she hissed, grabbing onto his arm. "They'll see you!"

"So?" He laughed at her worry. "They don't know my face. No one you know knows my face."

"But they know mine!" Jane hissed. "They know my face, and if they see you with me—" She groaned, burying her head into his arm. "Oh, God, we have to get out of here."

"Oh, okay, so now you're embarrassed to be seen with me?" He rolled his eyes. "Thanks."

She drove her fist into his leg, as furious at him for playing this off as a joke as she was at herself for not paying attention. "This is serious!" she hissed. "It's Tasha and Allie—you know that U.S. Marshal? If they see us—"

"So?" he interrupted. "What's it matter? You're off the clock, aren't you? What's the harm in you watching a baseball game?"

"The harm is who I'm watching it _with_ ," she snapped back. "And you know that! Why are you treating this like it's not serious?"

"Because it's not serious! What's going to happen? They see you with me and… What? They assume we're together?" He raised his eyebrows. "I'm sorry, Jane, would that not be correct?"

She shook her head, turning away. She knew what he was getting at. "It isn't about that," she muttered, and for once, she was relieved he didn't press her. She didn't want to get into it here and now—especially not with Tasha and Allie just yards away. "I don't know how to balance this yet, all right," she said quietly, finding his eye. "I don't… I don't know how to merge my different lives. I don't know how to be with you like it doesn't change everything else in my life."

"You're doing it right now," he reminded her. "We're out in public right now, and people you work with are twenty feet away—and look, nothing's changed. The world hasn't ended. We're all still alive."

"Oscar…" Her lips pressed together, and her eyes begged with him to understand. "Please, come on. You know it's more than that. You know it isn't as simple as just saying everything's okay. There's more behind this, please understand…"

He saved her the embarrassment of continuing by nodding. "Fine," he sighed finally. "Let's just go then, all right? If you're really freaked out, let's just head out, okay?"

"Wait, we… We can leave?" she breathed, her face lighting up with hope as she looked up at him. Her eyes darted to the field as another cheer went up, and a man stole around the bases. "But… the game's not over yet."

"Doesn't matter. We can leave whenever we want. It's not like they're keeping us locked in here." He grabbed her hand. "C'mon. Keep those tattoos of yours hidden, and let's sneak out."

He caught a flash of her smile just before he rose to his feet, and he grinned back, tugging her along. She pulled her cap down low, and did her best to hide her bare arms as she followed him down to the closest exit. She could still hear Tasha and Allie shouting at the umpire, and it wasn't until they were back behind the stadium seating that she managed to relax about it. She slowed to a stop, leaning against the concrete supports, and shook with laughter.

"This is ridiculous," she panted, shaking her head as she looked up at him. "You're right. What am I doing? I'm running away from my coworkers because I don't want to be seen with you? _Why_? For what reason besides the fact that you're hard to explain?"

He shrugged. "Hey, you tell me. You're preaching to the choir, sister."

A smile was peeking out at the corner of his mouth, and she grinned back, and then stepped forward to hug him. "Thank you," she whispered over his shoulder. "I'm sorry I freaked out. In the moment, I just didn't know what to do—"

"It's okay," he interrupted gently. His hands came up to cup her slim back. "It's okay, I get it. It would've been awkward."

She pulled back, glancing down at herself. Even in the dim light beneath the stadium, her tattoos were still prominent. "You'd think I'd be able to handle the awkward by now."

"It's different than that, though." He reached out and took her hand, carefully lacing their fingers together. "And that's okay," he added. "You and me… It's complicated, I know. Especially for you, especially with them. But we'll figure out a way to explain it. And whenever you're ready, we can… Oh, I don't know. We can all go out to dinner or something. Have a meet-and-greet."

Jane snorted at the thought. "God. Can you imagine that? You having dinner with me and the team?"

"Oh, I dream about it _every_ night," he joked.

She smiled, and then tugged on his hand, turning them towards the exit. She held onto him as they made their way down the stairs, at a fraction of the speed they'd ascended them hours earlier.

"So," she said when they eventually reached the bottom. "What do we do now?"

He shrugged, peering out at the open streets before them. "I don't know. We've still got a few more hours in this afternoon to kill…" He grinned, catching her eye. "What's to say we go out and run into some of your other Bureau buddies, just for kicks? See how many we can spot in a day."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, shut up."

But she didn't let go of his hand, and when they finally picked a direction to walk in, she held it tight and stayed close by his side.

* * *

 _ **A/N** : Thank you for reading! If you have thoughts, I'd love to hear 'em. :)_


	5. Anniversaries

_**A/N** : Based off of a prompt from tumblr — 'true or false universe (if you think it fits) - Oscar starts sharing anniversaries with Jane.' Enjoy! :)_

* * *

"Did we ever have a first first date?"

They were on their second date (or perhaps their second second date) when she asked. He blinked in surprise at the question, and then set aside the water he'd been drinking. He sat back in his chair, thinking for a moment. She watched him with interest—this was her favorite thing, she had found: watching him sort through the past. She liked the little smiles that sometimes flickered across his face without explanation, hints of happier times. She liked the way he sometimes laughed to himself, and the way he always did his best to explain it all to her in terms that made sense. She liked most of all that he did not hide anything from her, not the good or the bad.

"I don't really know if we ever had anything that could be considered a date," he answered finally, and she nodded, having expected something like this. They'd both been in separate branches of the military, her Army and him Marines, when they'd met, and so she hadn't imagined that they'd gone out to nice dinners or to see a movie. But still, she wondered.

"What did we do, then? Just snuck around at the Army base and sorted through all these government conspiracies?"

"Well, mostly we snuck around at the Marine base—you came to me; you didn't want me coming to the Army—and… Yeah." He laughed a little in realization. "That kind of _is_ all we did for a while. You were very gung-ho about the Plan, as we called it back then, and so that's what we stuck to. It didn't allow much time for romance."

"So…" She eyed him across the table, more curious now than before. "How'd it happen between us? If we were all business…?"

A smile pulled at one edge of his mouth. He glanced down at the table, habitually straightening an off-kilter piece of silverware. "Maybe I'll tell you another time," he excused quietly.

Though she shook her head in disapproval, she couldn't help but laugh. While he did not hide anything about their past from her, and he did not lie, he did tend to be very specific with exactly when he gave out certain bits of information. This was not the first time she'd heard this line. "You sure do like stringing me along," she commented, reaching for her wine.

He smiled, catching her eye. "Hey. We've all gotta work with what advantages we have."

* * *

Weeks passed, and the subject didn't come up again. She prodded him here and there, but always he begged off, and she learned to leave him be. He would come forward with the information, she knew, as he came forward with everything: when he thought it time. And in the interim, she didn't mind waiting. They went out almost every weekend, and spent more than a couple weeknights together at her apartment. They watched movies or cooked dinner together or went for walks through different parts of the city, or sometimes they just sat on the couch in her apartment and talked. He always left before it got late, using the same excuse he'd used the first time whenever she got it in her head to make him stay: _Maybe another time_.

She let him go. He usually left sometime between ten and eleven-thirty, always with the excuse that she had work the next morning and therefore needed the sleep, as if she would automatically go to sleep the moment he left her apartment. She didn't, at first. At first, she stayed up and waited, certain he'd come back. She knew he wanted her—that much was obvious, despite the pains he took to act like he didn't—and for a couple weeks, she actually thought he'd go back on his own promises of wanting to, in his words, "do things right" between them. But he didn't, he never showed back up after he left, he never broke that promise, and eventually she did learn to fall asleep rather quickly once he'd gone.

Which was what made him appearing at her door, at two-thirty AM on a Wednesday night—technically Thursday morning—all the more inexplicable. It didn't help that all he said when she answered the door was, "Get dressed, we're going out for breakfast."

She stared at him hard—the edges of her vision were still fuzzy with sleep—and she thought about telling him what time it was. She thought about shutting the door in his face and going back to bed. But there was an odd excitement in his eyes, a happiness to the way he shooed her away to get changed when she hesitated, and she decided, _Why the hell not?_ Her curiosity always got the better of her with him.

She dressed in the dark, not caring what she looked like, only pausing in front of the mirror to make sure she had her clothes were on right-side-out and front-ways before heading to meet him at the door. She expected an explanation, but all he said was, "Good, let's go."

* * *

They ended up at one of those little twenty-four-hour diners in the East Village, the kind with bright red neon lights instead of proper signage, and waitresses who looked like they did literally nothing else except tend to the few customers scattered throughout the quiet establishment.

They picked a booth by the window, with empty tables on either side. Jane hadn't been hungry when she'd left her apartment with him, but that had been almost a half-hour ago, and now that she was awake, she was starving.

The waitress brought coffee without having to be asked, and then they ordered their food, and she departed to the kitchen. Jane cradled the ceramic mug in her hands and sipped at her coffee. She kept it black in order to give herself the illusion that it would work faster. Now that she was sitting she was getting a little sleepy again.

When she set down her mug and looked up, he was watching her intently.

"What?" she frowned.

"Nothing…" He shifted in his seat, hooking his elbow over the back of the booth as a smile spread over his face. "Just… Aren't you going to ask me what all this is about? I show up at your door at two in the morning on a Thursday and drag you out to breakfast and you don't even stop and ask me why?"

"You know, I've decided to stop wondering with you. I just go with the flow now."

He laughed. Then his face softened, and he caught her eye with a tenderness she hadn't expected. It woke her up more than the coffee.

"I said something like that to you once, you know." He waved a hand between them. "You used to do this to me. Show up in the middle of the night, drag me out of bed, never say a word about what your plan was—"

"And you figured it was high time to get back at me?" she guessed dryly.

"I figured it was time to explain. You asked the other month, about if we ever had a first date?" She nodded, straightening up. "Well—we didn't, really. It's like I told you the other week—we had other things to focus on. But, after you asked at that dinner, I sat and thought about it for a while once I got home. We didn't get together immediately, you know. The Plan was—well, it was our lives. It was the entirety of our relationship for a long while before we ever went anywhere romantic. And once it did become romantic between us… Everything kind of blended into one. There weren't so much as dates as there were times where we met and we did more than simply strategize. There were times when we talked, and we actually talked about ourselves, in addition to whatever was on our docket for the night. And I knew I couldn't put a start date on it; I knew I couldn't say _This is when we became us_ , but… Then I realized I could put a start date on one point, at least. I could remember a time we met up that was just about you and me, and not the Plan."

"And?"

"And it was this." He smiled, waving a hand at the sleepy diner around him. "You woke me up in the middle of the night and you took me out to breakfast—you even paid—and we didn't once talk about the Plan or the Army or the Marines."

Jane tilted her head. "What'd we talk about?"

"I don't know," he said quietly. His smile faltered a little as he looked down. "I can't remember. Stupid things, I'm sure. Favorite foods or colors or books or what have you. Silly things that I clearly can't recall now. But what I can recall is that it was nothing about work. It was nothing about the Plan. It was just you and me… talking about you and me."

The thought of it made Jane smile. She loved imagining that—imagining them happy together, doing regular things, being… normal people. It was both so different and so similar to what they were now.

Their waitress arrived with their food then—he had ordered pancakes and bacon and eggs, and she had gotten french toast and sausage and an english muffin—and for a while they simply ate, contributing little to the sleepy silence that surrounded them.

Finally, when she took a break from her food, she looked up and asked him, "Why did you wait so long to tell me about this?"

"Hm?" He was in the middle of a bite of eggs, and he swallowed it before he asked, "What do you mean?"

"Well—you said you remembered this breakfast thing after that second date we had. But that was weeks ago." She couldn't help the disappointment that entered her tone. For better or for worse, she had gotten used to trusting that he would never omit any truths from her, at least not without a good explanation. And while this truth was rather trivial compared to others, it was still important to her—to them. "Why'd you keep it to yourself, Oscar? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Ah." He smiled, waving his fork at her. "I didn't tell you because I could remember the date."

"The date?" she repeated, not understanding.

"The day of the week, the month, the year—it was April second; that was the day you took me out to breakfast—and that's today, now. I remember the date specifically, because when you showed up and asked me to come eat with you, I almost didn't want to go, because I thought it was going to be a belated April Fool's joke, and once we got there, you were going to make fun of me for buying it and then bail."

Jane frowned, her earlier disappointment forgotten. "Why would I do that? Why would I make fun of you?"

Oscar chuckled a little, reaching for his coffee. "You were… very aware of the fact that I'd liked you since we met. It was a source of almost endless amusement for you."

"Because I didn't like you back?" Jane wondered, confused. That didn't exactly make sense with all he'd told her, or all they'd become.

"Well, no, I think you did," Oscar replied, setting down his cup. "But you've always liked having the high ground. To keep that back then, it was in your better interests to make fun of me for liking you rather than giving in to whatever attraction you were feeling. Because if you did, then we might be equals, and—" He leaned forward, lowering his voice dramatically. "— _can't have that_."

Though he smiled, like it was a joke, and turned back his food, Jane frowned, puzzling through what this must mean. "Wait, so… I was fully aware that you were into me and I just mocked you for it? Openly? Even though I felt the same way?" She looked back to her food, shaking her head. "God, I sound like a jerk."

He grinned. "I would concur." A moment later, he shrugged, "But I wouldn't run yourself down. You knew how to work situations to your advantage, and that was a damn good advantage you had with me. You milked it for all it was worth, rightfully so. Besides, if I'm behind totally honest… You didn't give me anything I wasn't already asking for, Jane."

"How's that?"

He met her eyes briefly and then looked down at his food. "Well, it was kind of pathetic on my part. Given our rather unconventional situation, I didn't really know what the rules were… So I just waited forever for you to come out and say you wanted me too. I watched you come and go, hoping _this_ time when you stopped by, it would finally be the time you showed me something, gave some hint…" He shook his head at his past self. "I should've just made a move. It was stupid. I wasted so much time—"

"Trying to do things right?" she supplied with a pointed raise of her eyebrows.

He frowned, catching her double meaning. "This is different," he muttered, stabbing a piece of egg a little too hard with his fork. "You know this is different."

She grinned, folding her arms over the edge of the table. "Oh, of course it is."

"It is! You have no memory, Jane. We can't rush into things like—"

He broke off when the waitress came to check on them, and after she refilled their coffee, Jane lifted her mug to her lips and cradled it, watching him. She wasn't going to let him off the hook this time.

"How is this different? We didn't know each other then, but we learned to. And sure, I don't know you now as well as I did then, but—"

"But nothing, Jane! I know every detail of your life, _our_ life, and you know next to nothing of mine. Think about what kind of an advantage that puts me at. I don't…" He sighed, leaning back into his side of the booth. "Look. No one wants to jump ten steps ahead as much as me. But…" He eyed her carefully. "I also want this to last, okay? And in my experience, taking things slow at the start is a good way to make things last, later. We've been given this second chance, and I… Look, it would kill me if I screwed it up, okay? It would kill me, Jane."

She glanced down at the table, setting her coffee beside her plate with a nod. She knew he was right. He was using his head, where she was using only her instincts, relying only on her desires. She had no proper argument besides _I want you_ , and after all they'd been through, it wasn't fair for her to push that on him like this. She turned back to her food, and for a few more minutes they ate in silence.

"So," she said when she'd had enough of food, and enough of silence. "What anniversary of my past life will we be celebrating next? The time I put a knife to your neck?"

He chuckled, as she'd hoped he would. It cleared the air a moment. "Oh, I don't know…" He rubbed a hand over his chin, thinking. For a moment it was silent again, and she let him think. And then she saw that spark of realization in his eyes; she saw his brown eyes flicker to hers. A smile spread across his face.

"So now you know which one."

He nodded resolutely. "Yes, I do."

"And you're not going to tell me?"

"Aw, come on." He waved a hand. "Where's the fun in that?"

"No fun, but certainly relief."

"Relief is overrated, let yourself be surprised."

"Hopefully not at two AM this time," she warned.

"No, no, I'll keep it to business hours."

She grinned, picturing, for a moment, him arriving at the FBI while she was on call, appearing just to say _Happy anniversary_! for some other ridiculous little meet-up of theirs. She picked at the remains of her food, letting the silly little fantasy play out in her head. She surprised herself by realizing that she actually wouldn't mind something like that. It was outlandish and insane, of course… But it made her happy, too. She liked the thought that he wouldn't care who saw them together, wouldn't mind what her coworkers would think or say.

"Can I ask you something?" she asked suddenly.

He looked up from his food. "Yeah?"

"Why didn't you ever make a move with me? The old me," she added quickly. "Why'd you wait so long? If you liked me so much… I mean, you weren't just being a gentleman, right?"

He laughed. "No, no, not at all. But like I said, I didn't really know what the rules were with us. And besides, the anticipation of it all… Though it was torturous sometimes, it was easier to sit there and do nothing, and endlessly imagine things going right, than to try something and risk things going wrong." He shrugged, a smile playing on his lips as his eyes stared at a spot over her shoulder. She watched him drift into memories again, as he had so many times in her presence, wand waited for him to come back. "And I don't know why," he murmured, "but it was kind of fun despite all the danger. You know, the uncertainty of it all… Watching you come and go, waiting for you to appear every night, watching you disappear…" He shrugged. "I mean, we were kids. Sneaking around with you was exciting. It made my week, my month. And what can I say?" he added, coming back to the present, catching her eye with a smirk. "You were a very attractive woman that broke into my barracks at night, and out of everyone in the room, you wanted to see _me_ alone. I wasn't going to tell you to stay away, no matter if you made fun of me for liking you. Do you have any idea how good you made me look to the other guys?"

She laughed.

"Oh, uh-huh, you think it's funny, but it's true. I actually had some clout among the more senior guys in my platoon, because they all thought we were sleeping together."

"Weren't we, though?" she teased with a smile.

He smiled back. "Oh, not until much later. And by that point, nobody even batted an eye at us running around together." He returned to his food for a moment, and she to hers, but she was distracted when she heard him laughing to himself.

"What?" she asked, curious, after she'd finished eating.

"Nothing, it's just…" He trailed off, shaking his head. But that smile still floated across his lips. He looked up at her. "We hadn't ever left the base together before that night, when you took me to breakfast. Think about that," he pressed, leaning forward over the table. "You risked innumerable censures by sneaking into and out of the Marine base every time you visited me. You could've been drawn up in court. You could've been tried for treason." His smile widened, and for a second he closed his eyes, savoring the memory. "And you… One night, you snuck in, snuck _both_ of us out, even brought me back… And for what?" His shook his head with a smile. "Because you wanted to eat pancakes with me."

She smiled too, but looked down. "It sounds silly when you say it like that," she whispered.

"I don't mean to belittle it. Really," he added, and his voice was so earnest that she looked back up. "It still amazes me sometimes, the things we did together back then. The things we risked. It blows my mind."

"Is it really that much different than now?" she wondered quietly. "I mean, I know we're not in the military anymore, but I'm with the FBI. And you're with that group—" His face clouded at the mention. "—and what do you think will happen?" she asked. "When someone eventually figures it out? What will they do to us?"

"I… don't know," he answered slowly. She could see her own worry reflected in the creases that had appeared on his face. "I don't know what will happen. But," he added before she could speak, "I do know that we'll figure it out together. Okay? No matter what comes at us, or who, you and me, we'll figure it together, like always. I promise."

She nodded, accepting this, and grateful for his conviction. "Okay."

He didn't have to stay by her side, she knew. He could bail when things got hard; he could slip the leash of the FBI or go on the run from his shadowy group. But he held her eye now, and he promised with an open face that he'd stay, and she was relieved to know she could believe him. On this front, and on every other.

"So," she said a few minutes later, once their plates had been cleared and the check brought back. "What now?"

"What now?" he asked, grabbing his coat.

"Well…" She glanced at the clock on the wall. "It's nearly four AM. We're both full from the food and wired from the coffee… I'm definitely not going to go back to my apartment and lie down…"

"Want to go for a walk?" he offered. "We could find a good spot to watch the sun rise in an hour."

She smiled at the idea, and nodded at once. She hadn't even thought of that—but suddenly, nothing sounded better. "I'd love to," she replied.

He led the way to the door, and held it open before gesturing that she should go first. "So," she said as they fell into step beside one another and headed uptown, "we just celebrated the anniversary of our first breakfast-date together… Does this mean we're gonna do it every year? One of us is gonna wake the other up at two in the morning and drag them out to a late-night diner?"

He laughed, and took her hand as they crossed the street. "Hey. I hold no objections to continuing the tradition if you don't."

* * *

 _ **A/N** : Thank you for reading! As always, if you have thoughts, please leave them behind in a review! :)_


	6. In the Past

_**A/N** : Another little snippet. Enjoy the fluff! :)_

* * *

It wasn't a good time for a question like this.

She knew that. She looked at him sitting across from her as he talked, his face dimmed from the low light around them, but his eyes bright with the happiness of spending time with her, and she knew if she asked this question, she could ruin things. She could ruin this nice dinner they were having; she could ruin what was being rebuilt between them. But if she didn't ask, she knew the question would only stew, and grow larger, and darker, in her mind.

He was telling some story about when he'd been a kid, playing baseball with his dad, but she couldn't listen anymore. In fact, she hadn't been listening for minutes.

"Can I ask you something?" she interrupted.

He blinked a the suddenness of the question, but nodded as usual. "Sure," he allowed. He was used to such interruptions, used to the unpredictable hunger of her mind for the past. "What do you want to know?"

"It's…" She bit her lip, looking down. She felt she should warn him: _It's personal_. She felt she shouldn't even be asking it in the first place—not now, not here. They were here for dinner; they were here for fun. But she stared at the lone candle between them, identical to all the others on the nearby tables in the little restaurant, and she knew she had to ask. It would haunt her the rest of the night if she didn't. It wound haunt her for weeks on end, as it had been haunting ever since that first memory of him.

"Why didn't we get married?" she blurted. "Was it just—Was it just the mission?"

She could see traces of shock in his face—it was harder for him now, to hide his emotions from her. Or perhaps she had just gotten better at spotting them.

"Was it the mission?" she repeated, leaning over the table, desperate for the truth and certainty he offered her. "Was that why?"

He leaned back in his chair, drawing away from her enthusiasm with a quiet sigh. She watched his chest rise as he drew in a breath, and watch it sink into itself as he expelled it. He didn't meet her eyes, but seemed to stare at the space between them.

"The mission was… part of it," he said finally.

"And the other part? Parts?" She was being too eager, she knew; she was pressing him too fast, too far. She was getting too close. This was only their sixth actual date. But she had to know. His hand was resting on the table, fiddling with his silverware, the way he did sometimes, and she stretched her arm out to hold it. He looked up, meeting her eyes. She could see the question there— _Are you sure you really want to know this_?—and she nodded. They had been there before; she had asked certain questions, and when he'd given her the truth, she had wished later that she hadn't wondered in the first place. But this—she had to know this.

He straightened up then, holding onto her hand as he pulled his chair forward. It didn't budge much; this restaurant, like the first one he'd taken her to, was tiny. They had made a habit out of that, in recent weeks: of trying to find the smallest little places to eat dinner, each taking a turn and trying to one-up the other. This restaurant had been her choice: a minuscule French bistro, tucked away about a half-mile from the Bureau. When work had run late earlier this evening, she'd met him here. He'd had her change of clothes.

Her lips flickered up into a smile as he sat up, her eyes appreciating the trim gray suit he had on. It was new. He'd bought it for her, just like she'd bought the red dress she was wearing for him. It was the only time either of them dressed nice these days: when they went out together.

He cleared his throat, and she returned her mind to the matter at hand.

"There were other things besides the mission," he began. "One of those things…" He looked down. She watched as he stared at her hand in his. It took him a few seconds to speak. "I wanted kids."

She blinked, quietly taken aback. This was not the sort of confession she'd expected. It was so… _normal._ "Kids?" she repeated, just in case she'd heard him wrong. "You mean—children?"

He smiled a little, meeting her eye. "You're using the same tone of voice now that you used back then, you know. And yes, I wanted kids. Children. Real, human children." She started to open her mouth, but he waved her off, "And before you say anything, _yes_ , I knew it was foolish. I knew it was… asking for heartbreak. Begging for it, even." He shifted in his seat, shrugging. "But I wanted them."

"You wanted them," she repeated slowly, watching him from across the table. Her right hand was still in his—loose—but her left hand was clenched very tightly around the napkin in her lap. She stared at him, waiting for him to pick up on what she was getting at. But he was still looking at the candle between them, lost somewhere in the past. After a moment of gathering her strength, she squeezed his hand.

"Do you still?" she asked quietly when he looked up. "Do you still want kids?"

He stared at her. For a few seconds, he vacillated between trying to speak and cutting himself off. Finally, he asked, "Do you really want to have this conversation with me right now, Jane?"

"I'm asking, aren't I?"

"Yes, but…" He sighed. "Jane, look. I know you don't remember how dating works, but we've only been out four times. People don't usually have these sorts of conversations until—"

"Until what?" she interrupted, her voice just barely rising above his. "Until they're serious? Until they're _engaged_?"

He started at the mention, and she felt guilty for it—she could still see that flash of hurt in his eyes—but she forced herself forward. Even though there wasn't a table sitting next to them, she lowered her voice as she leaned towards him. "Oscar, come on. The sorts of conversations we have? No one has them. There's no baseline here; no convention to follow. No other couple talks about the things we talk about—life-or-death missions and wiped memories and government corruption and broken-off engagements…" She squeezed his hand, and tried for the middle ground they'd become so accustomed at sharing these past few weeks. "I just want to know," she whispered. "I want to know where we stand. Where you're at."

She watched him as he sorted through it. She watched as the fairness and the inevitability of her words made themselves known. It might not be the right time, sure, but she deserved to know this fact as much as she deserved to know any other. They both knew this.

"All right," he said. "But let's keep this simple: I'll answer your question, and then we'll move right onto something else. We don't need to linger. Deal?"

She nodded. "Deal."

"Yes," he answered at once. "Yes, I still want kids."

The moment the words came out of his mouth, she was grateful for his stipulation. While she'd been expecting something like this—his wants not changing despite their break-up, or the time lost—it was still so different to hear him say it out loud. It was overwhelming, to look into his face as he confessed this truth.

Because she could see it there, in his eyes: she knew what he was picturing when he looked at her. She didn't have to know every moment of their past to understand it; she could see it written plain across his face. He was picturing them as a family. He was imagining them happy, together, surrounded by their children. He was dreaming that she was pregnant with his child.

 _I still want kids._

His words reverberated in her mind, and she looked away from him as quickly as she could.

He let her have her silence, let her have her avoidance.

After a few seconds, he spoke. "I've made you uncomfortable," he observed quietly.

She shook her head, still not looking at him, and reached a hand up to brush away her hair, just for something to do. Too late, she realized she'd used her right hand; she'd pulled away from his touch. _Fuck_.

"I'm sorry, Jane." His voice was hushed like they were at a funeral.

"It's fine," she tried to whisper. _Aren't we supposed to be moving onto something else_? she thought. _Aren't we not supposed to be lingering?_

"I know you want to know everything about who you were, but Jane, there are some truths you're better off not knowing. Trust me, from someone who's been there. We've talked about some of them, I know, and this…" He sighed. "I've always felt like this was one of them. I've always felt like this was something that was supposed to stay buried in the past, and not be uncovered."

She looked up, blinking in surprise. "But… you told me it anyway."

He nodded. "Because I promised you I'd always be honest with you. If we were gonna try again, I told you there wouldn't be any lies or omissions." He held her eye. "Did you think _that_ was a lie?"

Jane shook her head. "No, I just…"

 _I didn't think you'd go this far_ , she might say. _I never thought you'd lay yourself bare like this_ , she wanted to tell him. But those were simply thin half-truths she'd been telling herself. She'd always known it would get to this point; in her heart, in her head, she had always known he'd be brutally honest with her, and himself. She meant too much to him; that was obvious. He couldn't risk losing her again, not over something so simple as a misunderstanding.

And as she looked at him, she realized that they agreed in that respect. She wouldn't let what they had be wrecked so easily, either. She wouldn't let the happiness they'd found together be overpowered by the fear of the unknown. She wouldn't give up that easily.

"I guess I'm just surprised is all," she said finally, breaking the silence and putting up a smile. "I mean, you hardly take care of yourself—I swear, the only time you eat vegetables is when they already come with your meal. And even then…" She pointed to the pile of broccoli remaining on his otherwise empty plate. "Come on. You really think you could take care of a kid when you lead with _that_ example?"

For a second, he stared at her without moving, and she was terrified she'd gone too far. For a second that lasted an eternity, she saw it all spread out before her: she saw him getting up and leaving; she heard the scrape of his chair and the slam of the door; she saw herself standing and watching as he disappeared into the night and never came back.

But then he smiled. He laughed a little. He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. "Vegetables, really? I may not be a model of nutrition, fine, but I think it takes more than that to be able to raise a kid."

Jane grinned back, relief flooding through her. "Hey, how would you know? How many kids have you raised, Father of the Year?"

He smiled, "No more than you. But…" He shrugged. "I tend to take care of other people better than I do myself. It's a… Well, I don't know if it's bad or good, but it's a habit nonetheless."

She nodded to that, her eyes tracing the shape of him as he sat across from her. That certainly was true. If she'd learned anything in these past few weeks with him, it was that he always put others before himself, that he _always_ held himself back—in particular, from her. The lack of much physical intimacy so far in their relationship, she thought, was a rather bothersome reminder. Particularly bothersome. Though she thought now, with his confession of wanting children, that maybe she knew where his reticence was coming from. And maybe she should be grateful for it.

She was still thinking on that when his face was suddenly before hers, just inches away. She started, feeling like she'd just missed something, and involuntarily drew back.

"What?" she asked, doing her best to recover and look normal.

A smile danced on the edges of his mouth. "You said we were a couple. Before, that's how you referred to us."

"Oh." She smiled a little, more entertained now than taken aback. He looked so happy. He almost looked like a kid himself. "Well, we have been on four dates, as you mentioned. Well, five, now," she added.

He raised his eyebrows. "Didn't realize five dates made us a couple."

"Does it not?" She frowned, thinking. She wasn't sure if there was a rule about this. Zapata and Patterson had never mentioned a certain number… She looked up at him, curious. "Okay, five dates. If not a couple, what does that make us?"

He shrugged, smiling, and left it up to her as usual. "It makes us whatever you want us to be, Jane."


	7. Make Me

_**Anonymous asked: Hello! Because every OTP needs a fic to this prompt: Jane/Oscar + "make me"**_

* * *

It was the fifth time he'd had to push her away in barely double the amount of minutes. This time, he literally had to pick her up off of him and deposit her back on her side of the couch.

"What is the _point_ ," he demanded, trying to hide his heavy breathing behind irritation, "of inviting me over to show you a movie if you won't make an effort to actually _watch_ the movie?" He picked up the remote to rewind the film, _again_ , to review what they'd missed while she'd been distracting them both.

"I think you and I both know that I didn't _really_ invite you to come over so we could watch a movie. It's what the kids call a _ploy_."

He scowled, and pushed away her hand that was creeping up the side of his leg. "Stop," he muttered under his breath. And then, louder, "Great, so you've made a habit out of lying to me. Fantastic."

She rolled her eyes, resting her head against the back of the couch. "Oh, don't act all wounded. You knew I was lying when you said yes, and you still said yes anyway. You're still _here_."

"Yeah, that's because I expected you'd be at least manageable. I thought that was our deal."

"Our _deal_?" Jane laughed, curling her legs underneath her. "I think that would imply that we've actually had a conversation about this and come to a mutual agreement, _which we haven't,_ might I remind you." She glared at him, but he kept his eyes steadily ahead, pretending to watch the movie as he navigated back to the start again. She crinkled her nose in annoyance at his denial, and pushed back against the couch with a huff. "Besides," she muttered under her breath, "since when am I ever manageable?"

He cracked a smile; he had to agree with that, at least: she never _was_ manageable, and never had been. It had been easier, though, in the beginning when they'd started dating again, because at least then she'd been as nervous as him of going too fast. More nervous, in fact—she'd been downright frightened, at times, to push things further than the comfort of their friendship. But she had adapted with a speed that still boggled his mind when he stopped to think about it. In the span of one night, she'd gone from being terrified at the thought of going out to dinner with him in public to later inviting him up to her apartment once he'd walked her home.

And now, just a couple months later, she was trying to get into his pants while they watched _The Breakfast Club_ like some awful incarnation of a parent's worst nightmare of their teenage daughter's first date, only the genders were flipped and both of them had had sex before.

Jane sighed heavily beside him, crossing her arms over her chest as Anthony Michael Hall started up his voiceover for the sixth time tonight. After a moment, she muttered, "Well, at least this one's actually in color this time."

He glanced over and caught her eye with a half-smile. "This one's good," he replied, and left it at that.

She left it at that, too, and they both turned back to the movie. He waited for her to make another move—to reach for his hand, to start kissing him again, to crawl back into his lap—but she stayed relaxed by his side, and after a while, he ended up relaxing, too. He tensed for only a second when she moved to rest her head on his shoulder, and when he wrapped an arm around her side, she didn't take it as an invitation to hop into bed.

She talked through the movie just like she talked through every movie—it's why he refused to see them with her in public—but he liked hearing her commentary this time around. It was amusing and more than a little telling. She called Molly Ringwald's character "awful" the second she appeared on-screen, asked _God, it's not really like that, is it?_ of the high school setting, and frowned, either in concentration or disgust, any time a character did something teenager-ish. She had become interested in them recently, teenagers; it was the reason why he'd chosen this movie to bring along tonight. They were a new breed of people to her, and he liked watching her try to acclimate to their ways through a fictional depiction. He loved watching her face as she discovered the world around her.

That's what he was doing when the virgin conversation came up on-screen. He had forgotten all about it, and by the time it started, it was too late for him to make a casual excuse to leave the room. His hand was still wrapped around her back, and her head was still resting against his shoulder, and so he just sat and watched and waited, feeling dread prickle sourly in the bottom of his stomach.

 _Are you a virgin?_ Bender asked of Claire on-screen, bending low over the table towards her. _I'll bet you a million dollars that you are! Let's end the suspense. Is it gonna be… a white wedding?_

 _Why don't you just shut up?_ Claire replied. She was trying to muster up the courage to properly put him down, but her high horse didn't seem so tall next to him anymore.

As if Jane were an extension of himself, Oscar could feel her stiffen at his side as the scene went on. Her head was no longer resting against his shoulder; it was frozen against it. He could feel her whole body solidify beside his, like a statue.

 _Have you ever kissed a boy on the mouth? Have you ever been felt up? Over the bra, under the blouse, shoes off, hoping to God your parents don't walk in?_

Claire could hardly speak. _Do you want me to puke?_

 _Over the panties, no bra, blouse unbuttoned—_

"Is that what you think this is like?" Jane asked quietly, her voice cutting through Bender's taunting of Claire and Andrew's defense of her.

"Hm?" Oscar pretended to be lost in the movie to save time, even though he knew exactly what she was asking, and he couldn't quite hear the movie anymore over the sound of his blood moving too fast through his veins. He had forgotten about this scene. He should've thought this movie night through before he suggested it. He should never have come over to her apartment tonight.

"Is that what you think this is like, between us?" she repeated. Her head was off his shoulder now; his hand had fallen away from her back. When he still didn't look over at her, though, she reached out for the remote and turned the movie off, commandeering his attention. When the screen went dark, he had no choice but to look at her. He did so as slowly as he could.

"Do you think you're… some sort of corrupting influence on me? Is that why you refuse to have sex with me?"

"I'm not refusing—"

" _Don't_ lie to me," she interrupted sharply, and her voice was so fierce he actually started a bit in his seat. "Not to my face, Oscar." Her voice softened, "Not about this. Please."

He swallowed, unable to look away from her even though all he wanted to do was run from the room. He didn't want to have this conversation with her, he _couldn't_. There were things he didn't know how to put into words, reasons that would not make sense to her, things that she would never understand because she would never fully remember what it had been like between them, before. This conversation was a minefield, and he knew wherever he stepped, he'd get blown to bits.

"I'm not a virgin," she reminded him quietly. "So I don't need you treating me like one, understand?"

"I know," he nodded. "But… It's not really the physical aspect of things I'm concerned with, Jane," he replied quietly.

"What are you concerned with, then?"

She moved a little closer, and then sat silent, waiting. He tried to ignore the tactic, tried not to let her silence eat at him, but it worked just as well now as it ever had in the past. Her silence made him want to tell her everything, made him want to help her understand. Only his inability to articulate himself properly was what held him back from actually speaking. A minute passed, two, three…

"Well." Finally she broke the silence, heaving a heavy sigh, and he jerked his head up, thinking that for a second that would be that, and she would let it go as she had so many times in the past. But then she continued: "If you're so set on doing everything right and proper and by the book, then fine, let's go by the book, Oscar. True or false—"

He groaned, tipping his head back against the couch. "Not that again—"

She raised her voice. " _True or false_ : you want to sleep with me too."

"Stop it, Jane."

"True or false—"

"I said _stop it_ ," he ordered loudly.

She stiffened at the command, and drew herself up, her back as straight as a rod. "And I gave you a statement," she replied, her voice suddenly very cold as she stared him down. "Did we or did we not agree that we always had to answer those?"

He waved her off, shaking his head. "Knock it off, all right? This isn't a game, Jane."

He started to get up, to leave it at that, but she grabbed his shoulder and forced him back into his seat. "Do I _look_ like I'm playing a game, Oscar?"

He sighed tiredly, leaning back against the couch and lifting his hands to rub the hollows of his eyes. "Jane. Look. We've talked about this—"

"No. _No_ , we have _not_ talked about it, Oscar. _You've_ talked about it. In fact, I've lost times of how many times you've talked about it, how many times you've told me _Another time_ , and pushed me away like that somehow explains anything at all!" He tried to interrupt, but she pushed past him. "No. No, you're _done_ talking, not unless you want to tell me what this is really about." She paused, waiting, but he did not jump in to defend himself. She could see he wanted to, though; she could see the truth hiding in him, despairing at being locked inside. Tonight, she decided, she would drag it out of him one way or another. They would clear the air about this, once and for all.

"I'm sick of you pushing me away," she told him. "I'm sick of having you near me all the time, but never near _enough_ ; I'm sick of knowing you want me, but don't want me _enough_. Just tell me what you're worried about, and we can fix it. We can talk and we can make it right. _Please_ ," she whispered. He stared up at her and she took a chance, carefully reaching out to take his hand in hers. She held it close between her two. "You always talk about wanting to do this right, about wanting to make it last between us this second time. Well…" Her forehead creased in confusion, in a plea for understanding. "Why is sex not a part of that? How can you act like it isn't just as important as everything else we do together— _more_ important, even, because you keep pretending like it doesn't matter?"

He closed his eyes. "Jane…"

He tried to pull his hand out from between her two, but she held on fast.

"Do you know what that feels like?" she whispered, moving closer to him. "Do you have any idea what it's like, to be pushed away from you at _every_ turn? To have you give me the _smallest_ bit of encouragement, only to then snatch it back a second later when I happen to cross whatever invisible line you've made up in your head for us? Do you know how frustrating and discouraging it is, to think one second that you want me, only to be reminded the next that you aren't at all interested—"

"Don't say it like that," he cut in, his eyes flashing open. "I _am_ interested. Of course I'm interested; God, how could I not be?" When she demurred, he reached out his free hand to touch her forearm, her cheek. He cupped the left side of her face gently. "Jane. Come on. You _have_ to know I'm interested. You _have_ to know that there's nothing about you that I don't want. No part of you I don't want."

"And why do I have to know that? When have you ever proven to me that you want more than what we have?"

"I'm proving it right now. I'm proving it to you by telling you—"

She shook her head. "No. No, this isn't how you prove it. Talking doesn't mean anything."

"Jane…" He could see what she was getting at, knew what she was doing, but before he had time to say another word in warning, she moved forward and kissed him.

She could feel the resistance the second their lips met—his hand falling from her cheek to her shoulder, trying to push her away—but she refused to heed him this time. She let go of his hand and tightened her hold on his cheeks, and then, before he could so much as breathe, she lifted herself up, hitching a leg over his far side until she straddled his waist.

He groaned when she settled into his lap, the softest, " _Stop_ ," escaping from between his lips as she kissed him, and she smiled, pressing herself closer to him. "Stop," he whispered again, when her hands moved to cup the back of his neck and shoulders for leverage, so she could pull herself closer, and press their bodies flush against each other's. "Jane, please stop—"

"Make me," she dared him in a whisper, pulling back just long enough to catch his eye with a grin before lacing her fingers tight behind his neck again and kissing him once more. She closed her eyes and focused on the feel of his body underneath hers, in front of hers, doing her best to elicit some kind of response in him. His previously impenetrable will was crumbling—she could feel it now, could feel his mouth moving with hers, could feel the desire infecting him too—but he wasn't breaking fast enough. She needed more—so much more.

She hooked one arm around the back of his neck as she let the other trail down his shoulder, his arm, to take his hand in hers. They were lying balled-up by his sides, as if chained. "Touch me," she whispered, pulling his fingers open and putting his hand on her waist. " _Touch_ me," she all but begged, pulling her tank top up so she could press his fingers against her bare skin. "If you want me, show me you want me. _Show me_."

He gripped her hip tightly, though it was clear the moment she let go and tried to move towards him that he meant the touch to be restrictive and not encouraging. She didn't care—she moved into him anyway, kissed him, and buried a hand deeply in his thick hair to keep him there. For every inch she tried to lift her shirt, he yanked it back down, but she persisted anyway—she could feel that he wanted her. She sensed an ally in his body if not yet his mind, and she knew if she kept at it, she would eventually wear him down. Like most things between them, it was just a matter of time.

She was more than halfway there when his arms suddenly wrapped around her tight, closing like a steel trap and holding her hard to him. She tensed, heart pounding, waiting eagerly for him to turn her over and lay her out on the couch beneath him, or perhaps carry her back to her bedroom, but all that ended up happening was that he locked her tight within the confines of his arms, and then he buried his face against her shoulder. He didn't kiss her; he didn't touch her. She tried, but she couldn't free her arms beneath his grip.

"Please stop," he whispered, breathless, his voice muffled against her shoulder as he held her still. "Please, Jane, I'm begging you. Please just stop."

"Why?"

He shook his head against her, not answering.

" _Why?_ " she demanded, grabbing what she could—a fistful of the hem of his shirt—and tugging on it to get his attention. "Why do you want me to stop? Why won't you kiss me? Why won't you touch me? Why won't you let me believe for _one_ second that you actually want me the way I want you? Why—"

"Because I'm afraid!" he yelled suddenly, jerking his head back from her shoulder. "Because _I'm afraid of you_ , Jane, that's why!"

She stared at him, eyes blinking wide. "You're… What?"

Her entire body had gone slack at his outburst, and her brain was still trying to catch up. He took the break in her concentration as an opportunity to push her off of him, and to get to his feet, to put space between them. Before she could stop him or hold him, he was up on his feet, pacing, and she was curled on the couch, still staring.

"What are you talking about?" she breathed, watching him shove one shaking, furious hand through his hair after another as he moved urgently back and forth in the small space of her front room. "What do you mean you're _afraid_ —?"

"How are you _not_?" he cried, whirling around. "How are you not terrified, Jane?"

If he didn't look like he was about to have a nervous breakdown, she might've laughed in his face.

"Oscar," she began as gently as she could, pushing herself to her feet. "Calm down, okay? It's just sex—"

"No." He pointed a warning finger at her, backing away into the kitchen as she stood up. " _No,_ see, it is _not_ just sex, and that's why you can't be the one making these decisions. You aren't looking at the full picture. You don't know half of what this is about."

"Oscar—"

"It's never going to be just sex between us, Jane, you have to recognize that. You have to recognize that I know things about you, about us, about how we function and how we don't function—"

"Good!" she interrupted. "Then you can teach me. We can learn from past mistakes. We can do better this time. We can—"

" _Stop_ simplifying this!" he demanded. "This isn't a cutesy love story where everything works out perfectly just because we want it to! I have _years_ of experience with you, and you only have a handful of months. I'm not just going to take you to bed like it means nothing, not when there's that big of a difference between us—"

"I'm not asking it to mean _nothing_!" she shouted back. "All I'm asking is that you to _allow_ it to happen if it's going to, allow us a chance to—"

"Not if it means we don't get another chance!" he yelled. "I will not risk what happiness we have, what future we could have, over one night of broken self-control. I'm not going to risk us ending over that, Jane, and don't ask me to."

She stared at him, shocked for a moment into silence. "Us… _ending over—_?" For a second, she stared at him in confusion, not believing what he was getting at. But he kept his eyes on her, serious as ever, and she knew he meant exactly what he said. "No." She shook her head. "No, you can't be serious, we're not going to end over _sex_ , are you insane—?"

"I'm very well-versed in our history, is what I am," he replied quietly. When he next spoke, it was very fast, and she had to concentrate to keep up. "And yeah, you're right, I want you. I want you all the time. I want to kiss you and I want to touch you, and I want to take you back to that bedroom and never let you leave it. I want to have sex with you, I do, of _course_ I do, but…" He faltered. "I can't let myself because what if…" His eyes were pained when they met hers. "What if that's the last thing we ever do together? What if… What if us being that close, being that intimate, triggers something in your memory and—and you remember why you stopped wanting to be with me in the first place?" His voice was rising steadily, close to cracking. "What if that reason is still relevant, Jane, and what if when it's over you won't even be able to look at me, what if—"

"But what could I remember?" She moved towards him quickly, his fear invading her. "Oscar, what could I _possibly_ remember that would make me—"

"I don't know!" he cried, throwing his arms out in desperation, in surrender. "I have no idea, Jane, that's the thing! You gave the ring back, but we never really talked about it. We talked about some things, sure—about how it was impossible to really be together permanently because of the mission, about how we might not want the same things in marriage—"

 _Kids,_ she remembered numbly from their dinner the other month. _He wanted kids. Wants. Still wants._

"But near the end…" His face twisted. "You grew so interior," he whispered, and he looked like he was about to cry. "We stopped talking about anything remotely important, least of all us. We… We kept sleeping together, every night, but…" He shook his head fast, as if trying to banish the memory. "We were both just fooling ourselves. It was already over. It had been over since the second you agreed to be the one to go in, to spearhead the mission. What was left was just…" He shrugged helplessly. "Guilt? Torture? Comfort? I don't know! We were killing each other because we didn't know how to say goodbye. We didn't know how to stop without making things worse."

 _Stop_ , he had begged her earlier. _Please stop_.

She took a few more steps towards him. "Oscar…" She wanted to hug him.

"I know," he whispered, his eyes careful as they met hers. "I know how hard it is for you, to think of that time before as if it were part of your life. I know it seems like this grand story that I'm telling you for fun, making it up off the top of my head as I go. But it was real, Jane, it was all real, and when I think about how it ended…" He turned his head away. There wasn't anything left to say.

She took a couple more steps, closed the gap between them, and took his hand. She felt a little prick of relief when he squeezed her fingers back.

"Now is different, though," she reminded him quietly. " _We're_ different. And I'm not leaving you behind, no matter what you say or what I remember. I know what you've been through, and Oscar, I would _never_ —"

" _Don't_ ," he cut in fiercely, his head jerking up. "Do _not_ make promises like that to me, Jane. Not ever. Don't ever say you won't leave me, not until you can predict the future and set it in stone."

Her hand fell away from his. She closed her eyes. For a long moment, the world spun again in confusion and fear, and fell away from her, and she let herself be lost. She knew one way to crawl back, but she also knew she wasn't ready to have this conversation with him. Neither of them were.

But it was here anyway. And if they were going to move forward, if they were going to stay together, it had to be said.

"What can I do, then?" she asked, opening her eyes. His were right there, wide and worried and fearful, staring down at hers. She stepped closer, until they were face to face. She reached her hands up to touch either side of his neck lightly. She could feel his pulse, under her thumb. It was moving too fast, just like hers. She spoke anyway. Putting this off would not help. "Tell me, Oscar. What can I do to convince you I'm not going anywhere? To convince you that nothing you say or do, nothing I remember, will scare me off?"

 _Tell me you love me_.

The answer was there, in the silence between them, in the space between them. She could see it in his desperate eyes, and he could see it reflected back in hers, so kind, so trusting. He closed his eyes, turning away guiltily. He didn't want to force this on her. He never wanted to force anything on her. She let him go, let him walk to the other side of the room, drop onto the couch, and bury his face in his hands hopelessly.

She gave him a minute, two.

And then she walked over and sat next to him. She asked again.

"Just… be patient with me," he whispered finally. " _Please._ " He squeezed his eyes shut tight, and then opened them, searching for hers. She was waiting by his side, hands resting in her lap. Carefully, keeping an eye on her the whole time, he reached out placed his hand atop hers. "I know it's not… easy. I know it's asking a lot, and I know it's confusing, but—"

She quieted him with a hand.

"It's okay," she whispered. "I understand."

"Do you?"

She gave him a sad smile. "I don't want to lose you, either. Even thinking about it…"

She shook her head, looking down at their hands. She didn't know how to explain to him what he meant to her. She didn't know how to describe the way he brought such normalcy to her life, even when he was, in himself, more like part of a dream she had somehow made real. He was the best part of her new world, her new life. She didn't want to think about him being gone from it, not even for a second.

Her tired smile widened a little bit. She could tell him that much, at least, so she did.

He looked down at the compliment, but she caught a flash of a smile on his face, and she knew he was pleased. When he murmured that she was the best part of his new life, too, she reached forward and hugged him. He hugged her back, hard, harder than she'd expected, and it took a couple seconds for her to get her breath back. It took them considerably longer to pull apart.

He hesitated as they broke off, and she gave him what little encouragement in a smile she could manage. _This is enough,_ she wanted to tell him. At some point, she'd find the will to say it out loud.

His hand was lingering on her neck, his fingers brushing the inked feathers of the bird tattooed there. She had remembered once, and he had confirmed, that he had designed that tattoo for her.

 _Just that one?_ she'd asked.

 _Just that one_ , he'd nodded.

She sat very still when he leaned forward and kissed the tattoo. She did not sit as still when he leaned back, and kissed her mouth.

But when he pulled away, she let him go, and they settled into the couch once more, leaning into each other. After a few seconds, she gestured at the blank TV in front of them.

"So? Can we get back to the movie or what?"

He laughed at the icebreaker. "Do you actually want to watch it this time?"

She caught his eye with a smile. She felt like she hadn't heard him laugh in a while. "Well, I've been told by a very reliable source that it's a classic. Apparently my movie education will be lacking without it."

"Well, then…" He reached forward for the remote. "I guess we should finish it, huh?"


	8. One Day Soon

_**A/N** : It's been too long since I've written some good ol' j/o fluff. Enjoy!_

* * *

He lay silent and still in her bed as she got up and began to dress, but she knew he was awake. She kept her back to him as she rummaged in her dresser for a bra, a fresh pair of underwear, and a pair of jeans, but she could feel his eyes on her. His closeness made her smile, but she hid it from even herself as she pulled a t-shirt over her head.

He had been staying nights at her place, on and off, for a little over a month now, and the reality of it all still charmed her. It was such a pleasant surprise to wake up in the morning and find him beside her in bed; it was a relief when they finished dinner and he followed her back to bed without a word, rather than make all the old excuses as he headed to the front door. Despite the madness and mystery swirling around them, it comforted her to be able to share this calm, predictable routine with him.

As she went to the kitchen to find some breakfast, she found herself wondering about the rest of his routine. What did he do on weekdays, after she left for work? How did he spend all those hours between when she walked out the front door and when she eventually came back?

Grabbing her bagel out of the toaster, she spread it with butter and thought. She knew he didn't spend all day in her apartment; sometimes, there were even days where he got dressed with her in the morning and they left together. But that still left her with questions...

She made her way back to the bedroom, munching on her breakfast as she went. She stopped in the doorway, leaning against the frame as she took her turn watching him. He was still in bed, and it looked like he hadn't moved even an inch from where he'd been when she'd left. Half of his face was still tucked against the pillow, and though he wasn't asleep, his eyes were closed.

"Can I ask you something?" she called.

"Mm." He murmured his assent with a shallow nod, hardly moving.

"What do you do all day when I'm at work?"

That got him to open his eyes. He stared at her for a moment, perhaps debating how to answer. In the end, he gave the truth, as they'd promised long ago to always do. Unfortunately his honest answer wasn't particularly specific.

"While you're at work, I do my own work."

She rolled her eye as she stepped into the room. "Yes, I figured that much, thanks."

With a yawn, he pushed himself up off the mattress, and into some semblance of a sitting position. "Wha' d'you wanna know?" he mumbled through another yawn.

"Nothing you're worried about telling me," she answered, taking a seat at the edge of the bed. "I'm just curious about how you spend your time. That's normal for people in a relationship, isn't it? To want to know what the other does with their time?"

He nodded. "Very normal. It's so normal we should get an award."

"Don't be funny."

"Didn't realize I was." He held out a hand, and she obliged him by tearing off part of her bagel and passing it to him. She waited while he chewed.

"If I have offline work, usually I stay here for a couple hours," he answered. "If I need to use the computer, I leave."

She nodded, understanding this without him having to explain further. He had made it clear on multiple occasions that, despite all the cryptic markings on her body, he didn't want her directly implicated in anything their old group was doing. _In case things turn south_ , he had told her, and to this day she still wasn't sure if he meant things with the FBI or things with the group itself. She knew he and the latter weren't exactly on solid ground these days, though she did her best not to pry. It wasn't hard; often, she was too worried about what answers he would give her to bother demanding them.

It would all catch up with them soon, she knew. And Likely as not, it would be an absolute mess. But she wasn't going to focus on that now. For now, she was simply going to let herself enjoy life, especially life with him.

"What do you do for lunch?" she asked, steering the conversation to decidedly mundane waters.

"Well, I sure as hell don't eat here," he answered, reaching over to steal another piece of her bagel. "Not like there's anything edible in this place."

"There is too," she muttered stubbornly.

He frowned at her. "How many home-cooked meals do I have to make you before you realize that frozen pizza isn't food?"

She smiled. "Maybe a few hundred more."

He shook his head, miming exasperation as he shook his fists at the ceiling. "I give so much to this relationship, and what do I get back? Nothing!"

"Oh, please," she scoffed. "You're getting _something_."

"Oh, yeah?" A smile pulled at the edges of his lips as he dropped his fists and caught her eye. "And what is it I'm getting, exactly?"

She rolled her eyes, making to get up. "Not like that."

"Yes, like that." He reached an arm out to stop her, simultaneously showing her the face of his watch as he held her still. "C'mon, look. You're early. You've got a good fifteen minutes before you need to leave."

She groaned softly, looking between his face and his watch, trapped between obligation and interest. "No, no, I can't," she shook her head quickly, making up her mind. "I won't have time to shower afterwards."

"So?" He wrapped his other hand around her side, pulling her towards him. "You can walk in smelling like me. No one will notice."

She laughed. "People will _definitely_ notice."

"Ah, who cares?" He slipped his hands under the back of her shirt. "You won't be the first person to come into work late because of her boyfriend."

Jane frowned at the mention, thinking of the week before. Reade had come in late on Monday, and though she hadn't thought much of it at the time beyond the fact that it was very uncharacteristic of him to be late, now she wondered...

"Is that why people are usually late to work in the morning? Because they're having sex?"

He laughed at the serious look on her face. "In my experience, yes."

"In _your_ experience?" She raised her eyebrows. "Well, well, well... How much experience has _that_ been?"

"Not much, admittedly."

"Lair."

"Staller."

With a sigh, she reached for his left arm, turning it so she could read the clock. He watched her bite her lip as she deliberated.

"We could always go in the shower," he offered. "Two birds with one stone."

She smirked, looking up. "The shower? Really? Didn't you learn your lesson after your little tumble last time?"

"I'll have you know my ass is as good as new."

"What about your pride?"

"Shattered. But I'll put it on the line again and again just for you, baby."

"Oh, how romantic."

"Isn't it?" he agreed, ignoring her monotone. He squeezed her sides. "Now, tell me. Do we have a deal or what?"

She hesitated a moment, then she shook her head decisively and pushed him away. "Nope. I gotta get to work."

"Ugh." He collapsed back against the bed with a groan. "What a tease."

"You're the tease," she retorted. "You're the one who brought it up in the first place!"

"Yeah, because you were the one walking around here half-naked."

"I was getting _dressed_."

"A likely story."

She rolled her eyes, stepping out in the hallway. "Bye, Oscar."

"Bye," he echoed glumly, and then a minute later, he called out loudly, "Hey!"

She was already at the door by then, and throwing on her jacket, but something in his voice made her turn.

"What is it?" she asked worriedly, catching him just as he turned the corner into the front room.

He didn't respond, and instead made a beeline for her. Before she could open her mouth to ask again, he was kissing her, his hands in her hair, her back against the door, and she could do nothing but let her eyes close and kiss him back.

By the time he pulled away, they were both breathing a little hard.

"Do me a favor, Jane," he whispered as he broke the kiss.

Eyes still closed, she nodded, focusing on the warm feel of his breath on her skin. "Anything."

"Please try not to get killed today, okay?"

She opened her eyes, catching sight of the look in his eyes just before he managed to look away. There was real fear there, real sorrow. She swallowed, her throat scratching around a sudden lump there. She remembered the question she'd posed to him before: _What do you do all day when I'm at work?_

She knew what he'd said to her earlier had been the truth. He had his own tasks to take care of while she was gone. But she knew now too that there was something else he did all day. His chief activity when she was gone was not working, but worrying. He worried for her when she left in the morning, and he worried for her every hour until she came home at night. He worried and worried and he had never spoken of it, not until now.

She reached up, taking his face in both her hands to make him look at her. Wisps of the fear were still there, accentuating the lines in his forehead and the darkness in his pupils. She rubbed her thumbs against the rise of his cheekbones as she held him.

"I'll do my best to come back in one piece," she promised him.

"One live piece," he pressed.

She nodded. "One live piece."

She let her hands slip, then, from his face to his neck to his chest. She felt the warmth of him through his t-shirt, and rested her palms where she could feel the steady beat of his heart.

She didn't know how she had done this, so many mornings before. How had she gotten out of bed and taken the train across the river and left him behind without a second thought of whether or not they'd ever see each other again? It had been less than a year since they'd met again, but already she was taking for granted his place in her life. She couldn't imagine what she would do, who she would be, if he was suddenly gone from her again.

She closed her eyes when she felt his lips in her hair. She pressed herself up into his touch, suddenly wishing she'd taken him up on his offer for one last morning hurrah. She reached up and wrapped her arms tight around the back of his neck, holding him to her. For a minute, they stood together, arms wrapped around each other, heads bowed.

"Is all this ever going to be over for good?" she whispered finally.

"Someday, yes," he answered quietly. He lifted a hand to stroke her hair. "Someday it will all be a memory, I swear."

"And we'll still be around to remember it?" she asked, pulling back so she could look up at him. "You and me, together?"

He nodded and tried for a smile. "That's the hope."

"No," she corrected firmly, lifting her chin, "that's the plan."

His smile this time was genuine. "That's the plan," he agreed. Then he opened the door and let her go.

* * *

 _ **A/N** : hmu with your fluffy thoughts, friends. :)_


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